A WIN AT THE ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone,

What a great weekend we have had. Sandy has finally gotten the monkey off his back with a win at the Rock. He has a few runner-ups there and has even put a car on it's roof, but a brides maid no more.

The weekend did not start as we had planned. Our first qualifying run produced a 7.14 @ 191 mph. While doing routine maintenance we found a leaking head gasket. That required the removal of the cylinder head and replacing the gasket which took less than 30 minutes. The second and third qualifying runs were back to back 6.81's @ 199 and 203.06 mph, which put us in the 6 th position. This year IHRA shortened the field from 48 cars to 32. Sixth is not bad for a 432 cubic inch small block.

Sandy drove like a mad man this weekend with his worst reaction time being a .020. We were looking back at the runs and noticed the finals were the only time Sandy ran the car all out. The first round was our lucky round when Mike Westmoreland red lighted and we shook the tires. Second round we ran Stacy Hall and he had ignition problems just past half track. Third round was John Benoit who when into tire shake. Benoit was dialed 6.67. Crazy! In the semi's we ran our friend from Ohio, Glenn Butcher. Sandy was .008 to Glenn's .042, giving Sandy room at the finish line. And in the finals he ran Travis Harvey in Russ Farmer's Race Tech 68 Camaro. Sandy was .012 and Travis was -.003 red. Sandy ran it out to a 7.16 @ 191 mph. And the crowd went wild. I know myself, Lucien and Doug went wild.

Like I said, we had a great weekend. It seems like the race weekend takes forever to run, but once it's over the celebrating goes by to fast. Sandy's dad Lucien was able to come down for Sunday and he could not have been any more proud of his son. He took a boat load of pics that we will have up on the photo gallery in a day or two. This was Doug West's first national event helping us and I think Sandy may have spoiled him. This was also the first national event with the new race support transporter (Jeff :). Again, this is the best investment Sandy has made.

Sandy said his phone has been ringing off the hook with congratulations and he wants to thank everyone for that. We all had a blast and we can't wait until the next race. See you there.

Don

Runner Up @ Big Dog! Sort Of !!!

What's Up!

Our last blog was from the rain out at Mooresville. Since then we had an off weekend and prepared the car for the Big Dog at Piedmont Dragway. It is usually held on the first Thursday of every month, but it was postponed a week due to rain.

How about that runner up? Well, it was sort of in the consolation race. We ran a 4.35 on the shake down run. Then came back and ran a 4.35 on the first qualifying run. Going into the second and last qualifying run, the bump was a 4.31. Sandy tuned it up a little and it went straight down the groove with a 4.33. Unfortunately that did not get us in and the bump ended up being a 4.30.

In the consolation race Sandy out ran Jack Gaddy and Jason Harris with two more 4.35's. In the finals against Robbie Kiziah, Sandy ran his best number of the day. A 4.32 against Kiziah's 4.34. Hole shot loss. That will hurt your heart.

Well, that is sort of how we got runner up. We can say we made it to the finals of a race. Of course the pay wasn't as good and we didn't get any press on Piedmont Dragway's web sight. You still need to go to their sight and check out all the hot photos Van Abernathy took of Sandy's car.

That's it folks. Rockingham is this coming weekend. Hope to see you there!

Don