Roush-Yates Open House.

We haven’t been to any races since Virginia but the Sandflea has been busy. After Virginia, we came back with a wounded engine, but had to put that on the back burner due to the open house at Roush-Yates the following Wednesday. At the end of the day of the open house the guys pushed the car around back and started taking the engine out of the car. Sandy said he is not quite use to all the help. I mean these guys knew he had a wounded bullet and just took it upon their selves to get started on it. Service with a smile. The engine had broken some rocker arms and had backfired through the carburetors. Everything has been fixed, so now Sandy has to find the time to reassemble the engine.

The open house was an outstanding event. It was invitation only that included a lot of high profile racing people. It is in the heart of Nascar country, so of course a lot of Nascar guys were around. The open house was for existing and potential new customers. Sandy had quite a few of both there and from what I saw, I think they were all impressed. The picture of what looks like an office is actually the assembly area. You will notice an opening into each work area where a designated person assembles his engine. This may be drag racing, nationwide and cup, dirt track, or the 24 hours of Daytona engines. All this done in an area cleaner than my kitchen.

There was plenty happening outside as well. Along with Sandy’s car on display, there were world of outlaw cars, modified cars, dirt trackers, and an occasional cup car. But to me, the most interesting car on the grounds was the brand new Ford Mustang Pro Stocker of Justin Humphries. He and his family were in attendance enjoying the meet and greet with everyone. The car itself is a work of art and I can’t wait to see it go down the track. I think Sandy said they should have the engine on the dyno this week. If it produces the horse power they are predicting, it should be a contender from the very start.

Speaking of high profile people, this picture is of the three main people. You have Jack Roush, who spoke a lot about his drag racing in the early days. He talked about the Maverick he and Wayne Gapp ran in Pro Stock and the championship they won together. I myself still have, I think a 1973 Gapp and Roush Ford Pinto Pro Stock model car that is from back in the day. I also have a Barry Setzer Vega Funny Car, Don Prudomme’s Army Chevy Monza and his Army Top Fuel Dragster. I don’t think Prudomme actually had an Army Dragster but they did make one. I also have an Al Segrini Black Magic Vega Funny Car. Oh well, enough about that. Back to the three main men. You have Roush, then the general manger George Gable who brought Sandy on board and last but not least Doug Yates. Doug talked about where the company is going in the future and what fun they had getting there. His dad Robert Yates was also on hand.

There was a big crowd on that day and the main thing you had to worry about was the camera bulbs flashing. A lot of picture taking. Among the picture takers, you had Van Abernathy from Drag Illustrated taking pictures as well as Sandy’s mom Freda, who took this picture of the best looking guys on the grounds. There was great food as well as some signature Roush-Yates wine that was produced by Lucien Wilkins (Sandy’s dad) vineyard. It is Spencer Mountain Vineyards in Boone, NC. A fun time was had by all and Sandy thanks everyone who attended. See you guys at the races.

Don

ADRL Virginia!!!

We went to Virginia for the ADRL race last weekend and oh boy what a fun time. This was my first ADRL race since I was on the injured reserve last year. We left around lunch time on the Thursday before the race from Sandy’s new work place, Roush-Yates Engines. This was pretty neat because I got to take a tour of the new place which is beyond awesome. I thought I needed to take my shoes off before I went in. It was that clean. Roush-Yates Engines had a open house yesterday and I will have some photos of that next week.

We finally got on the road and got to the track around 6:30pm. We got the awning up, serviced the car and had supper with Todd Tutterrow and friends. Friday we woke up to another beautiful day and the cars were on the track at 9am. Now here is where the fun started. When we had a power glide in the car, we made a run and then serviced the engine and were ready to go again. Now this 5-speed has added way to much fun to the program. This is how it goes. You make a run, come back and dismantle the car. We still do the engine maintenance, but now we have to pull the transmission and clutch out every pass. We also were trying to figure the rear gear out, so it came out every pass on Friday. So, you make a pass, disassemble car, put it back together and make a pass, repeat tear down until you have made 3 runs. By now we are all starving and ready to pass out. We don’t have people hanging out with us, wanting to fix us food and bring drinks. I suppose we are too far down on the totem pole for that. And all I brought was cheese-its, gold fish and pop-tarts. What? Is that not healthy enough for you? We did go to Chilies’ later on that night thanks to Brian King’s persuading. Anyhow, we made it through the day by making one decent lap of a 4.38 @ 159. It drove through the clutch, which is why the mph was down and it was only on one nitrous system. We think if we can get the clutch right it will go 4.20’s on one system.

Sunday the cars were back on the track at 9am. They wanted to start everything earlier due to rain coming in later in the evening. On our last qualifying run we broke two rocker arms that slowed us down to a 4.60. The 4.38 we ran the day before qualified us 16th. So now we get to run the #1 qualifier Chuck Ulsch who has been running in the 3’s @ 200mph. No problem. Long story short. We did not have enough air gap in the clutch and rolled the beams causing a red light. Sandy’s competitor goes up in smoke giving us a win if Sandy had not red lighted. The excitement doesn’t stop there. About 200 feet into the run it breaks two more rocker arms and backfires through the carburetors knocking the scoop into a position that doesn’t look too good. We have all of the sudden developed a rocker arm problem. I am sure the guys at Roush-Yates Engines will solve the problem.

Anyhow, we are not where we want to be but in time we will get there. The neat thing about the ADRL is you cannot leave the race until it is over. So after our loss we got to hang out and see some of the racing. Pretty awesome stuff. We got everything loaded up and hit the road toward home around 7 pm. About 30 minutes down the road the bottom fell out and it was pouring rain just as they had said. We stopped to eat around 9pm and with all the work we did over the weekend we could only make it to Burlington, NC before it was time to sleep. We did make it back to the shop around lunch time on Sunday to end a very exhausting weekend.

I think the next race Sandy will be attending will be the ADRL in Michigan in June. With all the work we have to do now, some of you guys need to go with us to the next one. Later.

Don