Still On Go!!!!!

Hello again,

Day #3 of the blog. I keep my word...most of the time!!! I talked with the Sandflea today. Everything is still on go for the Rock. The car is ready, but he tells me that he is having trouble with the 12 volt system on the big truck. He said no problem, he'll fix that too. Sandy is sounding more up beat. I know he is tired, but like anyone, the closer the race gets, the better you feel.

I also talked with Jeremy Creasman today. He is coming to the Rock with a whole new combination. I want give it all away, but I will tell you it is not the black GXP that he has been running. Different car, different engine combo, same two speed powerglide. I think he said he ran a 4.13 testing last weekend. Can't wait to see it. Jeremy told us his motto for racing. He goes to drink beer and hang out with his friends. He just brings his car so he will fit in. Love that guy.

The pic is from the spring race at Rockingham. No special meaning. I just thought is was a cool pic. Sandy did win that race and it would make a good ending to a rough year to win the last race. I know the odds are against us. But Sandy did win 3 races in a row earlier this year. That's 15 rounds straight and 3 Ironmen. But let's be realistic. Three or four weeks ago, he did not know if he was going to make the last race. Now that the car is together and he has made a few runs, let's go try to qualify. If he accomplishes that, then let's try to make a round. If the car runs good with no major problems and we happen to lose first round, I still think the weekend will be a success. But who's kidding who. Any racer knows that their is no need to go if you're not planning on winning.

Don

Nationwide Is On My Side...........

What's up my people?

How about this back to back blog? Good news. I talked with Sandy today and progress has been made. With the help of Brian King this weekend, Sandy was able to test Sunday evening at Benson Dragway. He made four runs. Two with out nitrous and two with. Everything went well and it looks like he will be heading to Rockingham on Wednesday. Sandy said other than a few minor things on the car, the biggest project is making sure every thing is in the trailer.

This brings us to our title, Nationwide!!! My self and Chuck Chapman, (Chapman's Auto Body), were giving a chance to go behind the scenes at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Two garage passes thanks to our friend Amy Mosser who works at Haas-Carter Racing. Her team prepared car #61 for rookie Nationwide driver Brandon Whitt. He drove in the truck series last year and seemed to be a really nice guy. He only qualified 35th, but ran a pretty clean race and finished 21st. If not for a car checking up on him early in the race and a couple of bad pit stops, he probably was a top 15 car.

When Chuck and I were checking in at credentials, we run into NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Steve Johnson. Since there were not many drag racers around, we easily struck up a conversation. He was their hanging out with Mike Wallace and the Geico Toyota Camry. When the cars lined up on pit road before the race, we ran into him again. We talked about his up coming races, about sponsorships, and of course about the Sandflea. I gave him a card and he said he was going to check out the website. Steve-O was a pretty neat guy. He's a talker!

One of the neat things Chuck and I did was meet the guys from a new country band called the Williams Riley Band. They were first class. Big tour bus and a big grill. We ate with these guys and listen to how they have gotten to where they are. They have signed with a major record label and were at the race doing some networking. They gave us their brand new CD and we noticed that Bryan White sings on their debut single. Slash from G & R plays on one song and Edwin McCain sings on a another. These guys are going to be big and Chuck and I got to do some tailgating with them. Way Cool.

Overall we had a good time. It was a new experience after growing up around drag racing. We were their from 1:30pm to 1 am. I think I could have been happy with about 3 hours worth. Will I go back? Let's just say Rockingham is in a few days and I'm leaving Thursday morning. Four days of some serious fun!

All hail the Flea!!!!!!!!!!

Don

It's About Time...........

Hey guys,

I am sure that title is what you are saying. I have no excuses, except for work and more work, a wife, kids in football and so on. Still, no excuses.

Let's get right to it. Sandy has been working furiously on his car to get to the World Finals in Rockingham, NC. As of Saturday, the car is basically together. The engine and drive line are in. The new stainless headers that turn out the side are on. These are hot! The main thing is the wiring. It just takes a lot of time. I have only been able to drive down one time to help, so it has pretty much been all Sandy. From what I can tell over the phone, he is worn out. I don't know if he will be able to test before the Rock. This Friday may be the first hit on the track.

I don't have any current pics of the car. But I will give you an idea of what it looks like. Look at the car on the home page and imagine a few scuffs from the wreck with a John Montecalvo front end on it. I mean red, white and blue. Sandy says if it goes straight and we don't have any major problems, who cares.

The first pic is what the car looked like when Sandy picked it up from Bickel's. The second pic is the car at Chuck Chapman's being prepped to have the front clip painted. The third pic is from Jerry Bickle Race Cars. If you notice the chassis in the lower left hand corner on the jig, Sandy's car was taking off that jig two days earlier. These guys waste know time in building a car. The fourth pic is a not so pretty pic of a blown rear trailer tire while coming home from the Carolina Dragway divisional. A 12 hour stay on the side of interstate 85 with a corner of the trailer in the highway. Not good.

I haven't talked with Sandy today, so I am not sure if the engine has been fired or what the progress is. I will talk with him tomorrow and try to up date you tomorrow night. I know you don't believe that, but I will try my best. I would like to blog every night this week up until I leave for the Rock on Thursday. That is only three more blogs. I can do it. I hope everything goes well for the Sandflea so he can race at the Rock. Talk to you tomorrow night.

Don

Z-Max Dragway

Hope all is well. As you can tell I went to the new dragstrip in Charlotte, NC. And what a beauty it is. It is so cool to have a state of the art track an hour from home. Some friends and I only went down for one day. We all had a blast. The neat thing is their were a lot of NASCAR people walking through the pits. Rusty Wallace and his son Steven, Geoff Bodine, David Green, Joe Gibbs, Rick Hendrick and I'm sure many more I did not see. When we arrived Friday morning it was overcast and looking like rain. As the day went on it got extremely hot, but it turned into a beautiful evening. The only problem is we had to sit in the hot sun. Our good friend Chuck Chapman was in the air conditioned tower all day Sunday. Sometimes life is not fair.

Since we are on the Chuck Chapman subject, he is going to start on Sandy's car in the morning. As I am writing this now, Sandy is about four hours away, heading home with his repaired Cavalier. After a brief stay at the Shuford Estates, that's funny, he will head to Chuck's place in the morning to drop off the car. Actually, Chuck will paint the chassis from the fire wall forward and touch up a few things while Sandy waits. Then Sandy will take the car back to Raleigh and start putting it together. Once Sandy gets the car pretty close to being ready, he will then bring it back to Conover, NC for Chuck to finish. It will only be a month till Rockingham from this coming weekend. A lot has to be done. Can't promise a trick paint job. But Sandy only wants to be back at the track with his own car, so I know he will work now stop until then.

Z-Max Dragway had lots of good looking women on hand. And it seemed that my buddy Scott Dennie wanted his picture taken with them all. He is the guy you want in your group. Not afraid to say anything or talk to anyone. He kept us laughing the whole day. We seen a lot of our IHRA regulars racing. Matt & Kelly Cooke, Robert Holloway, Cameron Manual, who got down to the quarters, Steve Furr (quarters), Jeff Edmonds, Danny Waters Jr (semi's), Scott Lawton, Tracy Robbins, & Mark Young. Their were a lot. I also saw the always lovely Lisa Bingham hanging out in Pro Stock pits. The cool part? I will get to see all these guys and gals at Carolina Dragway this coming weekend. See you there!

Don

Charlotte & Carolina Dragway!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What does the new Charlotte Dragway in NC and Carolina Dragway in Jackson, SC have in common? I will be at both. This weekend is of course the NHRA race at Charlotte. Myself and four other friends are going down on Friday to catch some sportsman eliminations and to see some nitro night qualifying. We are taking a rookie to see and smell some nitro. I am going to put him right behind a fuel car during a warm up! Sandy says he might go to the ADRL race at Rockingham on Saturday and then to Charlotte on Sunday. Or he said he might work all weekend. If I know Sandy he will probably be working all weekend.

Good news from the Sandflea this week. First, he tells me that Jerry Bickle is working on the Cavalier. They are finishing up on the engine mounts, which sounds like they are not far from hanging the front end. Hopefully by the end of the week it will be ready. Now that I think about it, I hope Flea is driving to Missouri this weekend. Love ya Sandy. Second, he tells me that he has the green light to race Nicky Miller's 67 Camaro in Jackson, SC next weekend. You probably figured that out by the title. Why else would I go? I mean, I have no car or no where to stay. I'm just a bum looking for a ride. Anyway, Flea bag will be there and it is going to be large. Why not? This will be our second to last race of the year. Well, if we get to race in Rockingham! Looks like Sandy is mathematically out of the championship hunt. Let's go racing and just have fun. We have the car that can do it.

Speaking of. Here is Nicky's car again with Sandy behind the wheel. Picture this now. When Sandy is in his 434 cu in small block Cavalier, we are doing a burnout around 9000 rpm. With the 565 cu in big block Camaro, he is around 6000 rpm. You know his foot wants to go to the floor. Sandy's Cavalier sixty foots its rear end off to a 4.80 run on motor. The Camaro carries the front end 100 feet and makes an easy 5.15 run. With the Darlington runs under his belt, I wouldn't bet against him in Jackson. But of course I am kind of bias.

Regardless, the next few weeks are going to be B.I.G.- large. I hope all of our regular IHRA guys and gals that participate in Charlotte do well. My friends and I will be cheering for you on Friday while Sandy is freshening up your engine. I mean somebody has to work. Later

Don

Darlington !!!!!!

Hello my friends. Finally made it back to the blog. Hope all is well with everyone.

It was good to be back at the track after a month and half away. We got to see a lot of our friends and everyone was happy to see Sandy back behind the wheel. Sandy borrowed Nicky Miller's 1967 Camaro, which Sandy said was awesome to drive. The car was consistently in the low 5 teens. Nicky is the father of Top Dragster and Top Sportsman driver Josh Miller, who also happened to win on Monday. The Miller guys are a great group of people and Sandy is extremely grateful for getting the opportunity to drive their car. As far as the results from driving their car. Not so good. A red light in the first round ended race one. And taking too much stripe ended race two. Over all, just happy to be racing.

Our next race is up in the air. Sandy is trying to get a car lined up so he can race at Carolina Dragway in a couple of weeks. After that, it will probably be Rockingham if he gets a ride. If not, we will come down and support our friends. That may be the best plan yet. We can bring Club 660 and park beside you.

Sandy's Cavalier is still setting at Bickles waiting to be repaired as we speak. Apparently this will take a little longer than we first expected. Speaking of taking longer than expected, Jeremy Creasman debuted his new GXP this weekend at Darlington. How about going a couple of rounds while running low 4.30's. I will have his car and the other pics of Darlington up in a couple of days.

Thanks again to the Miller's and congratulations this weekend. Darlington was a good inspiration to get back to blogging. I have plenty of things to blog about. 1. Sandy back at the track. 2. Friends and their new car. 3. Supper and wine with our friends. 4. Lots of whining from Ronnie Proctor (only kidding Ronnie). Someone told me I was not blogging enough. See you in a couple of days?

Don

Stopping By The Flea's Shop!

Hello everyone! Hope you are doing well. It has been a little boring around here. The car is still at Jerry Bickle Race Cars and racing any time this year is not looking good. Soon we will have to start preparing for 2009, but I did not want this early of a start.

I stopped by Sandy's shop the other day to see how things were going. Of course they were hard at it. His number one man Josh was working on one of the lathes while I was there. Josh has been their around a year and a half and continues to do an outstanding job.

You will notice the front end hanging on the wall in one pic. That was the nose that was on the car when Sandy eased it into the wall at Piedmont Dragway. Beyond repair. So he spends a thousand bucks on a new used front end. That nose is in a small box in the trailer, thanks to a steel guardrail at Pittsburgh Raceway. Someone sent Sandy some action pics of his car wrecking in Pittsburgh. I hope to have those up in a day or two.

Another pic is of the office area. T-shirts and parts for sale. Ladies, check out those hot pink Wilkins Motorsports tank tops. A must have for all the females. Also an engine shop would not be complete without an engine for sale. Sandy has this very nice used but not abused PAR 522 BB Chevy. Call for details.

If you are in the Raleigh area, stop by and see the Flea. Better yet, bring an engine by for freshening up or let him build a new one for you. It's not like he's going racing this weekend. WOW! Sorry Sandy! That was my Smart A.. getting the best of me. Talk to you fine folks in a few days.

Don