Testing at Piedmont Dragway

Let’s talk about some testing. The Fleabag loaded up last Sunday and headed to Piedmont Dragway in Greensboro, NC to test his new toy. What is his new toy you ask? No, not a new car. No, not a new big block engine. Sandy is still running the small block. It is the new transmission. How about a Liberty 5-speed. Sandy figured he wasn’t working enough on his car, so why not put a clutch in it. This thing is hot. If you are a gear head like me, just seeing the 5-speed in the car makes it look fast.

So, how did testing go? Once at the track, we went over everything with the clutch and we talked about what our jobs were. It was myself, Brian King and Phillip Belvin helping the Flea. The one thing that we emphasized was, if anything happens; make sure to turn the power off to the car. So, we towed to the line for our first run. Since I did not get to go racing last year, there were a few things I had to get caught up on. One was the R3 neck support. I had to hook the restraints to his helmet for the first time. Two, was the practice of standing away to the rear of the car during the burnout. This is the law in ADRL apparently. And then the third thing was to calm my nerves since I haven’t been on the starting line in a while. You would think Sandy would be more nervous than me since he was doing something different, but he didn’t show it.

His first burnout with the clutch went really good but the car died when he came to a stop. Sandy said that when he pushed in the clutch, the car felt like it picked up speed. He doesn’t have the drag of the convertor to slow the car down now. He has backed up now and Brian has set the wheelie bars. Sandy turns on the pre-stage bulb and Phillip turns the computer and shocks on. Sandy rolls in and puts it on the rpm chip and drops the clutch. The engine bogged a little and he went to 3rd gear and shut it down. A 4.82 come up on the board. Ok, so now he has the butterflies out and we will turn it up the next pass.

Without the help our clutch advisor, we went over everything the best we could while taking way to long. Now don’t think we are ignorant, we are just out of our comfort zone. But we got in touch with our guy and made the changes that we needed and headed to staging.

The burnout went even better than the first pass. Sandy backed up as I talked him into the groove. The guys did their thing and Sandy turned on the top bulb. He brought the rpm’s up and turned on the bottom bulb and put it on the chip. Sandy dropped the clutch again and the car bogged worse than the first pass. At the lowest point of the bog, KA….BOOOM. Off came the hood scoop in a lot of pieces. The engine had a major back fire that took out the scoop and cracked the front end as well as cracked an intake runner. The thing that caught my attention is Brian running up to the car and turning the power off. Smart move just in case there is a major issue.

Of course Sandy’s feelings were hurt, but I suppose it is part of the learning curve. He is already working on the car to see if anything else is in need of repair. As far as his return or debut, that has been postponed a couple of weeks. If you have an extra carbon fiber hood scoop lying around, we are taking donations. Other than that, work goes on at Wilkins Racing Engines while the racing program is hold until repairs are made. As far as racing, we will probably be a spectator at the Charlotte race next weekend. Hope to see you there.

Don