Last three weeks

September 2 2007 at 11:25 PM

ShaZam ShaZam   (Login TRUKPULR)
Reddog's Friends
from IP address 72.129.223.138

Well folks:

Since my daddies funeral it’s been nuts around here. The Woody’s Nationals had a great turn out. I knew it was going to be a busy day so I had everything set up on ShaZam before registration even opened. Seeing as I had to handle the registration and getting everything set up in the Announcers booth for the pull and I was also doing the announcing there, So I con’ed my buddy Dean into getting my truck in the staging lane for me and up to the scale before I bailed out of the announcers booth and made my way on to the track. But as I got ShaZam on the track and lined up I tried to find my line down the track, but I ended up falling short of the 325’ the first place truck was sitting at. So over to the trailer to switch out the tires for Mod Class, When my buddy Dean had his turn down the track I heard his motor lose a cylinder and then I seen a big cloud of white smoke as his truck came to a stop. As they where pulling Burn’in Desire to his trailer I asked him if he’d pull ShaZam in Mod for me so I wouldn’t have to jump out of the announcer booth all the time. He was a little hesitant at first but he finally said OK so I gave him a quick going over on how all my toys work in the cab of ShaZam. How to set the tach to record the run and the play back oil and fuel pressure gauges, and then I headed back to the booth to finish out the day.

Dean did a good job in driving ShaZam and placed 4th for the day in Modified out of 9 trucks and ShaZam finished 2nd in the points for the year in Mod and 1st in points in Super Stock so it was a good day for us there.

And then there was this weekend. Last pull for the season for the NEW Club in Suring WI. As I headed to the registration booth I was stopped by the President of the NEW club and he asked me if I’d do the announcing there seeing there normal announcer had a conflict that night with her kids football game and he heard good things about my announcing so I said Sure Seeing I was leading the super stock points by nine and I figured it out that if ShaZam was to finish last in the class with 8 trucks and the 2nd place truck finished first I’d still have him by one point, So now I just had to find someone that wanted to drive ShaZam for me, and Low and behold Cory Lemirand Vice President of NEW Club showed up without his truck, And seeing Cory and I have gotten to be pretty good friend over the last 12 months I asked him to give ShaZam a good spanking down the track that night for me.
He said Cool, so I gave him the low down and went over everything in the cab with him. I told him I had the gear I wanted in the box so just take it out to the first set of cones and mate it and run it down to the end of the track. ShaZam was the 2nd truck in the class witch is usually the worst spot to pull from seeing the track doesn’t come around until a few trucks have gone down it. Jack Peters was the first puller in the Super Stock class and he hooked to the sled and yanked it out the end of the 225’ track with a pull of 228’and with the fence being at 230’ so the sled operator said he was going to reset the sled. Hot dame that makes ShaZam the first truck in the class then So while they where making there adjustments to the sled the tractor with the box scrapper on it was running up and down the track with the water on and was making the track a little slippery. So Cory brought ShaZam out on to the track and waited half way down the track and they finished up with the adjustments. When he hooked to the sled and tightend the chain He eased it out of the hole the best he could seeing he was use to a slipper clutch and I run a C6 that takes off as soon as you touch the gas. But as he hit the first set of cones and he nailed the throttle ShaZam just went up against the chip and he couldn’t get the tires to hook to the track at all. So he turned the pull down and we jumped up two on the gears and he got back in line thinking that a bigger gear will help hold the motor down some. Now had the leveler worked with me a little better and kept the water off as he groomed the track I think the track would have gotten better. But instead he got it to wet and it was just to slippery to let the big trucks hook but the few Open stock trucks that jumped up in class had just enough wheel speed and less horsepower where they all got good runs. It was the one time that to much horsepower hurt you. Cory came back as the last truck and when he tried it again it was worst then the first time. Just like driving on ice he said. But he finished 7th for the night and Tory finished 6th so I still took the points Race in Super Stock with a 7 point lead.
So After Cory made it back to the pits I let him know just to change tires and leave the gear in there it should work better in mod if the track was to get better. But it never did and we ended up taking 3rd place in mod, and also 3rd in points for the season.

So now does anyone see a trend here. I had one buddy Travis Emmes drive ShaZam at Equity, Dean Wagner drove in Mod at Woody’s, and Cory spanked ShaZam in both classes in Suring.
So Saturday Morning I fueled up and met Cory in Gillett at noon to head over to Jim Falls WI for a pull there. Now I heard from to many people that have been there before that it was a real bitting track and to drop 2 gears from what you usually run there cuz the Sled there pulls like a slug. So once we got there we took a walk to check out the track and it look really good a bit tight but good. The Sled there was the Red and Black Iron Horse and I never pulled against it, So I just listen to what everyone said and I drop to a 600 gear seeing I didn’t have a 650 gear in the box. But the one thing I did that I was glad I did was I pulled out my 8000 chip out and put a 8800 chip in its place. I figured if the gear was to small I could at least spin the motor higher to make up for it being smaller.

So they worked the track over and we had a drivers meeting and from there it was a real cluster, they had the scale in the pits area and they only let 3 trucks in the pulling area at a time so not to block the view of the pulls from the crowd. But they had one truck ready to go in as one left and one the scale. So I couldn’t get a real good read on the track seeing I was the 7th truck to pull. So as the line progressed the truck just in front of my broke a front axle as he was turning into the pulling area so that made me the 6th truck. So I got to watch one truck go down the track as I was heading down to the staging area, then once in staging you where behind the sled so you couldn’t see anything from there, so I figured I’ll just pick what looks like a good line and run the heck out of ShaZam.
Well as I hooked to the sled I got all set and I got the green flag, I rolled ShaZam out about 2 feet before I matted the gas to the floor and the Tach went from 3000 to 7500 then 8000 and in the mid track run I hit 8300 and then I felt the last stage hit me and the R’s dropped to 7500 and then I spun out at 8500, ended up with 309.11 but the first place truck was sitting at 345.02.
So I put my tail between my legs and Head back to the pits, where my night got even worst. There was a real cluster Fu*k in the parking back there and there was a truck in my way to get a straight shot onto my trailer and to top it all off someone moved one of my ramps for some reason and I didn’t see it until I drove off the ramp trying to get on the trailer. Smash and I heard all kinds of noises as I tried to back up as I bent all my brackets that hold the alternator on the front of the truck, and then one of the guys there started hollering to stop stop but it was to late and my other tire fell off the ramp as I was backing up and tore the power steering pump reservoir off the pump and I lost my steering. So now I had to get a few guys together to slide the rearend over to get everything lined up to try and get it loaded. After a few Sons a Bitc* es and mother fu*ker we had it loaded and chained down. And then I seen I forgot to extend my weight box for the pulls so there’s was about 20’ I didn’t get from it being pulled in. I went back to watch the other trucks run of which there was 25 Super Stock trucks there. The top 5 truck then came back at the end of the mod class for a $500 winner takes all pull off. Of which Cory made it into with a 5th place finish in the class. So by the time the pulls where over I had about a 8 pack in me and we went and had a little celebration at the trailer afterwards for Cory making the top 5 and then finished 4th out of that. Seeing how I was sleeping there in the Ramada Super duty I let it rip a little.

So OK Woke up at 6:00 a.m. And it was time to head to Harrisville WI after my 5-hour nap. Made it there by 10:30 a.m. after stopping for something to eat and some fuel. This time I didn’t listen to nobody about what this track was like. I took a walk and check it out and then made my gear choice from past tracks. I throw a 900 in the box and waited for the Super Stock Class to be called to staging.
After the first truck ran he got 335’ and he turned it down, and Gary said he was leaving the sled the way it was. So I lucked out and was the 12th truck to run so I got to watch a few trucks run down the track. but after the 3rd truck I knew I had to put a bigger gear in the box if Gary was going to let us run like that, So out came the 900 and I went up a couple and sealed it up.
As I watched I seen the other drivers where hugging the right side of the track and when I hooked to the sled my line went that way. But as things happen as I left the line ShaZam was heading to the left some and I couldn’t seem to get it straight, but I was heading down the track at 7800 just where it should be a d then all of a sudden the r’s Zinged up to 8500 I thought I must have broke and axle or something but then the r’s came back down to 7800 and then I spun out just another 20 feet down the track.
I asked the flag guy if all my wheels where still spinning at the end and he said he thought the where. As I got unhooked I looked back and I seen 4 ruts so I didn’t break anything. As I put ShaZam back by the trailer and came to watch the other trucks, One guy said I veered to far to the left and I had found a little slop hole in the track that why the r’s came up.

So I finished in the top ten but out of the money there. So I loaded up and headed home after leaving here at 4:00 Friday afternoon got back at 6:30 Sunday night.

Only 3 more weekends of single pulls left then I’ll go into my Blue Funk for a few weeks and then start to think of what improvements I’m going to make over the winter.

If anything I did get a few cocky Ideas about hitch design from some of those trucks from Minnesota.



Dan