Diary 2010

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Race Diaries - 2010

London Dragway, London KY (June 3 - 5, 2010)

UMDRA Racing!

Thursday, June 3, 2010 - by Shelly Boruta (with some help from Bob)

On the road at 6 PM, a couple hours later than originally planned. Still hope to make it close to Cincinnati before stopping for the night. Very warm but we had the air fixed just yesterday so good to go. Also had some clutch maintenance done on the truck since we expected to be doing a lot of hill climbing in Kentucky (track elevation is 1200ft). About 10 minutes down US 131, Bob discovered that the cruise control for the truck was not working. (It worked before it went into the Ford garage.) Without cruise, fuel mileage will probably be down even worse than normal.

Got as far as the north side of Dayton and started looking for a Walmart parking lot. None were visible from the highway so we got off at a couple different exits to search. Found none at one exit. Found one at another exit but it had a “no trucks” sign so we didn’t want to push it. We ended up pulling into a Rest Area to sleep at about 11:30 PM. (We discovered that Ohio has some decent, clean Rest Areas on I-75 but no RV friendly Walmarts.)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Got back on the road at 9 AM and it’s already warm and sticky! Bob called our Ford garage to ask about the cruise control. Their thought was that when the mechanic was working on the clutch, he turned off the switch for the Cruise Control and forgot to turn it back on. (Bob’s own fault since he had waited until the last minute to have the truck serviced and then rushed the mechanics so we could have the truck back by noon on Thursday.) Bob checked under the hood where the garage told him the switch was and found nothing. So, for the 1200 mile trip, Bob had no cruise control.

We rolled into Newport, KY (across the river from downtown Cincinnati) at about 11 AM and found a bus parking lot near the Newport Aquarium (as I was told on the phone). It’s a good thing that Bob can pretty much maneuver and park our 50+ foot truck/trailer on a dime since the gate into the bus parking area was only slightly wider than the trailer. We managed to get in and parked but could find no attendant or drop box to pay the $3 parking fee so we crossed our fingers and hoped that our truck wouldn’t be towed before we returned and walked to the aquarium. It’s steamy outside but we are now in pretty good shape for walking and the walk isn’t far.

“Newport on the Levee” is a quaint, clean little downtown area street mall with vendors and shops. It is also situated on the south (KY) side of the Ohio River with a great view of the Cincinnati skyline directly across the river. On our way to the aquarium, we passed an outdoor tight-rope arena (no one was around yet). At the aquarium, we paid admission, and walked into a sea of 8 year olds. We flowed along with the kids from one local and exotic marine exhibit to the next. The aquarium’s claim to fame is their shark tank. We had to agree that it is a very nice setup. The tank is constructed such that you walk through a tunnel of clear glass/plexi and the sharks, manta rays, and assorted other fish swim overhead and a clear glass floor. (I posted a short video on my Facebook page with a ray swimming over Bob’s head.) We sat down at the penguin exhibit for a few minutes before leaving. We walked the mall a little bit, bought a cool wind “spinner” mobile, and ate an excellent lunch on the patio of Mitchell’s Fish Market (hope we get some around here soon). From the restaurant, we watched tourists riding on the Ducks - the military aquatic - in the river. Neither of us is much on city scenes but the Cincinnati skyline actually looked attractive from our vantage point. We finished lunch, got a small cup of ice cream at Coldstone and walked back toward the truck.

On the way out, we passed the trapeze arena again and there were a couple of employees training a tourist. We watched as he successfully swung out and flipped his legs onto the bar. Looked like fun but unfortunately, we had to hit the road…. :)

We stopped for fuel in Lexington, KY under dark skies. It started raining hard (& blowing) as soon as we pulled into Meijer for some fuel. The rain pretty much had stopped by the time we pulled out of the station. A little damp, we pulled onto I-75 again and headed toward London.

As we expected, the deeper we got into Kentucky, the hills and valleys increased on I-75 and it felt more like Michigan with the many trees. We made it to London, KY at about 4:45 PM (time trials to start at 7 PM). The road into the track was only a short 5 miles from I-75. We missed it but luckily the road was a boulevard and there was a left turn lane within 1/8 mile so we did a U-turn. The 3 ½ miles on the last stretch of road into the track was a 2-lane but the width was more of a 1 ½ lane through a thick forest (Daniel Boone Nat. Forest) with no shoulder to speak of. We only met one or two cars head on but other UMDRA members told us they met a semi-tractor head-on (without incident).

We pulled into the track pretty early for the Friday night time trials (mainly our UMDRA members and one or two other vehicles). The track is situated on top of a high hill and we were able to see in all directions over the treetops. As we all started getting our vehicles unpacked, the skies were getting darker and darker. Looking to the south, it was getting hazier than it had been earlier so we assumed it was rain and it was headed our way. We put up one of our trailer awnings and parked the bike under it to keep it dry from what looked like a quick shot of rain. It did turn out to be a quick rain but also, a very heavy, blowing rain. Water was pouring in streams from our awning and the ground was hard clay and rocky so the water puddled up quickly. With the blowing rain, everything was getting wet, including us and the bike.

The rain was done in about 10 minutes but the skies remained dark for another hour or so, threatening rain. So, the track called off the Test and Tune, the other UMDRA racers headed for their hotels. Within an hour, the dark clouds had blown over and it was a spectacular sunset. We got out our lounge chairs for a quiet camping evening. With the exception of one other race motorhome, we had the whole place to ourselves for the night.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Race day!

Partly cloudy and already steamy at 8 AM – will turn out to be the weather format for the rest of the day and early hours of Sunday morning.

We talked over the UMDRA program with the rest of the UMDRA gang. We had to pay for a regular class (Pro or Super Pro) in order to compete for UMDRA so we decided to run both UMDRA and Super Pro. There were 6 UMDRA vehicles in attendance – us, Eric McKinney (900 Arctic Cat dragster), Doug McK (1000 Arctic Cat dragster), Larry (MAC) McK (900 Arctic Cat dragster), Ernie from Canada driving a second Larry McK car (680 Polaris dragster), and Troy Field (Troy4ford) from Mississippi. Also in attendance was our PR man (still car-less) – Craig (Handicap Racer) Hairston, and also car-less, Troy Russel (etmx376) and Bill Layton (new). After Troy R. & Bill L. helped Troy F. get his ZX 1400 Kawasaki powered dragster electronics figured out, all the UMDRA gang were running well. We put on a good show for the crowd and had several locals checking out our rides. Many were even familiar with snowmobiles.

UMDRA round 1: us vs. Ernie
Round 2: us vs. Troy
Final round: us vs. Doug (we won!)

The UMDRA site has some good write-ups of the event. As in the past, we enjoyed hanging out with the UMDRA gang; we’ll likely see them at Indy and Norwalk AMA Dragbike events. They’ll be at both, and since we’re second in Super Eliminator points, we’re seriously considering attending both events.

Besides the UMDRA gang, the “side show” entertainment for the night was a wheel-standing school bus named The Cool Bus. The Cool Bus was the standard wheel stander setup and all of its passes were successful but as is our inclination, B-n-S was more appreciative of the unique totter-home for the Cool Bus. It was a Freight Liner cab with an old school bus shell for the living quarters. I dropped in and chatted with the driver and his wife (both 70ish) and they were both tickled by our appreciation of their innovative rig.

The Super Pro class was nowhere as large as our home track’s (tonight it took 6 rounds to get to the final pair). However, this track allows people buy back after both first AND second round loses (not one OR two as we are used to). So it took until 4th round to start weeding down the pairs of cars in the class. They also have a “dial for a Mulligan” option for the last time trial. I asked a local to explain that one to me. A driver can pay $10, put a dial on their car during the last time trial, similar to our “dial for dollars”. However, instead of a cash prize, the person closest to their dial-in in each class gets a free buy-back option that can be used in any round of competition (ex: if you lose 3rd round, you can use it to get back into the 4th round).

The track owners were great hosts as were most of the local racers. However, safety clothing, in our eyes, is obviously optional at the track. We raced a dragster (same one twice) in which the driver was wearing a tank top. While waiting in the staging lanes, we noticed a guy climb into his door car with a fire coat, shorts, and floppy sandals. With the heat & humidity, we can understand the desire to try to stay cool but we wouldn’t even consider trading comfort for safety.

We were wringing wet all day, whether moving or sitting still and we consumed much water. Temperatures were in the mid to high 80s all day and 70-80% humidity well into the wee hours. Even Troy from Mississippi was hot. Troy told me that at home, they don’t start running until late evening since it is so hot during the daylight hours so running in this heat and humidity was different than he was used to as well. The locals said the weather was much warmer than normal. (Just our luck.)
Despite the 1200 ft altitude (twice that of home), heat and humidity, the bike performed well. The weather would have dragged down the old bike’s performance considerably but the new bike was very consistent.

As we won round after round, we started looking like we knew what we were doing and much of the crowd were watching our runs with interest as we took out one after another of their guys - one twice in a row. Bob’s reaction times and the ET were pretty much on tonight. (I may not need to hire a new driver after all if he can bring that performance back to the home track.)

As the night went on, the rounds were getting closer and closer with little cool-down time between. We had run a Super Pro round at 12:07 AM and knew the UMDRA finals and the next round of Super Pro would be close together. Whether or not to complete in the final round of UMDRA became a choice for us to make quickly since we were doing so well taking out the Super Pro class. We decided that since we were there primarily to run with the UMDRA group, we decided to go ahead and run the UMDRA final and hope we had a few minutes to try to cool before the semi-final round of Super Pro. Well, it didn’t work out too well. The UMDRA final was at 12:27 AM and we were called up for semi-finals of Super Pro only mere moments later. As expected, the motor was cool but there was still a lot of heat in the pipes. We didn’t know how much to allow in the dial-in for that so made our best guess. We couldn’t make that number. Bob heard the opponent let off the throttle a bit at the finish line and knew he was toast.

We collected our UMDRA winnings, the winnings for semi-finals for Super Pro, and at 1 AM, started packing up everything as quickly as possible so we could take a quick shower, jump into the air conditioned truck, and get as far north as we could. The track was pretty dark by the time we climbed into the truck and only one other rig remained. When we got to the gate, it was closed and we thought we were locked in for the night. Bob jumped out and checked it and it was only closed. He pulled it open, we drove through, pulled it shut again and we were on the road at exactly 2 AM.

Epilogue

Max’s suggestion of leaving the belt on all day seems to be working. Bob left the belt on the bike all day and did not belt/clutch maintenance between rounds. Despite the high humidity and heat and elevation, the bike was consistent all day. (Next step is to figure out how to cool the pipes quicker when the rounds get too close together for them to cool off naturally.)

Had we finished racing earlier, we may have been driving through the I-75 / Ohio turnpike (I-80) junction at the time the deadly tornados hit at about 2 AM Sunday morning. As it was, we drove through there about 1 PM Sunday afternoon and saw a lot of flooded farm fields but not a lot of damage was visible from the highway.\

Cruise Control problem: Apparently, when the mechanic was working on the clutch, he turned off the switch for the Cruise Control and forgot to turn it back on. Made for a quick fix after almost 1200 mile trip without.

US131 Motorsports Park, Martin MI (May 15 - 16, 2010)

AMA Dragbike Spring Nationals

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - by Kevyn Ashbay

After all of the rain we had Thursday, i was beginning to wonder if we would experience the water seeping up through the track like many other times we have been to US131 motorsports park, but over the winter they poured brand new concrete well out past the launch pad to fix those problems. It was probably a good thing and is already paying dividends

because there is standing water is spots but the track has never looked better. Bob already said how smooth it was and the data on the tach affirms that. The only thing the track could use is a little more time on it.From what I have heard its only been ran a couple weekends so far and you can tell because there isn't a whole lot of rubber on it yet. It doesn't help that we are at a motorcycle-only event, so that makes the grove even smaller. During the second time runs for some of the pro categories, you could see everyone in the left lane launching sideways because of the lack of traction over there, but all-in-all it is gonna be a great surface for many years to come.

Bob and Shelly got here yesterday evening and got parked and everything all organized. they even got to watch some of the Friday test and tune runs. Bob didn't make any Friday runs this year, and with the results of last year, that might not be a bad idea. Not that it has anything to do with what would happen this year, but just making it to Saturday is never a bad thing. Our first run out of the box is always a bit slow and this weekend is no different. We ran a 9.34 which is a little disappointing knowing that we ran 9.20 in testing. But if you step back and see our world record standing at 9.30, it was a great qualifier pass. I'm not sure, but I believe that pass might have put us as #1 qualifier and we are just getting started.

2nd round of qualifying brought a little cloud cover and with track temps back in the high 70's, all things were shaping up to be very good. Add that to all the very quick times people were running in the right lane, that was a great place to be. When the scoreboards light up and a 9.27 showed up, a big cheer rang out as we had lowered our national record and solidified our #1 qualifying status for Sunday's race.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A fairly early night came because of the low bike counts at the race this year and an early morning came with very nice temperatures and dropping humidity. It was shaping up to be an even better day and maybe even a quicker day. The humidity had dropped more than 5% lower than all of yesterday and the first round call came up with about the same temps. So we knew it was going to be a fast bike! 1st round pitted us against #16 qualifier Jeff Neubauer. unfortunately, Jeff could not get his H2 to start and he gave us a competition bye into round 2. Which turned out to be a good thing and Bob ran it out and got a startling 9.19 up on the board. A couple of expletives came ringing out of my mouth and got a congratulations from none other than NHRA Pro Stock bike rider Chip Ellis. Not only does that lower our national record by over a tenth of a sec but it is also a personal best across the board. I'm not sure if Bob knew it was that good going down the track but it makes me think the 8's are not too much further from being a realty with this bike.

After 1st round, all of the #1 qualifiers were congratulated with a ceremony where we got a very nice plaque and set of pins along with a PA interview for Bob. (If you would like to see it, log on to our facebook site and click on Videos)

The quarterfinals round had us up against Dave Derrick. He is another of the H2 bikes and dialed a 9.50 to our 9.20. Bob and I noticed that it is a little strange to be one of the quicker bikes in the field as most of the time we are far from it. Dave gave us a red light right off the line but I don't think it would have made much difference as we threw down a 9.209 on our 9.20. That gave us lane choice going in the semi-finals and high hopes that would could keep this weekend going a little longer.

As we were having our good weekend, so was Thad Neeld as he was our opponent in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, the match never made it past the burnout box when we had not throttle response which means we are out of air in our cylinder. After looking into what happened, Bob said we lost the high pressure diaphragm out of the bottle and spewed all of our CO2 into the atmosphere. Being a fairly new system, it one of those things that we will keep an eye on in the future. But, you can't learn these things until they happen and disappointingly, this one came in the semi's of a national event. Bob said to me later, "Everyone always says that a $2.00 part lost them a round, but this time it literally was $2.00."

Overall it was a great weekend. The temperature couldn't have been better and I got a little sunburn on my face which still hurts as I write this. But it was my first AMA Dragbike event and I have to say I am amazed by Larry McBride's Top Fuel bike. It's probably the biggest motorcycle I've ever seen and obviously the most powerful. The run I got to see from the starting line 10ft away was an astounding sub 6 second run at well over 200 mph! No better way to spend Sunday afternoon.

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