HOT ROD Drag Week 2018

HOT ROD's day 4 recap.

Day 4 results are in. And it's looking pretty interesting. Tom Bailey's 7.469 pass after the engine rebuild thrash was enough to retain a slender lead going into today. Street Machine Eliminator is tight, as always. And Mike Finnegan is inching up on Jarrad Scott in A/Gasser, 0.0493 seconds now separating the two cars :eek:

78 cars were confirmed out. Been checking out Dave Newbern on Instagram as they thrashed to get a 'new' motor in the '71 Nova. 'New' meaning old 350 Chevy out of a junkyard, because even that is better than an engine that you fragged the pistons in. Too much nitrous! They'll make it to the track in Atlanta, but they'll be running on no sleep. Typical Drag Week experience...

Day 5 stream link. Be advised that unlike previous years, this is starting at the same time as days 1-4 (8am Eastern, 1pm here)

 
He's apparently back in staging for another go, this time with the 'party pulley' fitted (smaller supercharger pulley for mo' boost). Think he may find the limits of traction on this go.

At least if he breaks something on Blasphemi with this one she can go straight on the back of the Roadkill Ramp Truck...

***edit***

Looks like the party pulley blew the motor up :o
 
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JRS said:
He's apparently back in staging for another go, this time with the 'party pulley' fitted (smaller supercharger pulley for mo' boost). Think he may find the limits of traction on this go.

At least if he breaks something on Blasphemi with this one she can go straight on the back of the Roadkill Ramp Truck...

***edit***

Looks like the party pulley blew the motor up :o
Click to expand...

Transmission failure. engine survives.
 
Ceryndrion said:
Transmission failure. engine survives.
Click to expand...

That's somewhat of a relief.

Those GF-5R 'boxes are normally unburstable. Makes you wonder what kind of horsepower Blasphemi was sending out with the party pulley on - with the engine in 'normal' trim she was making 900 horsepower at the tyres...
 
According to his last Insta post he's letting the car sit for a week (presumably while he basks in the afterglow of an 8.97 pass with many cold beers :D) before he pulls the transmission to figure out exactly what went on. I don't blame him, he's earned at least a short break!

He's got to fix it to be ready for a match-up in November at Pomona with the 'Tri 5 By Fire' car that the Hoonigans are building - same kind of Chevy gasser as Blasphemi, but with LS power instead of a second gen Chrysler Hemi design. That car back in May was being aimed at 700HP and 9 second passes. They may need to consider up-gunning it slightly...maybe spray it with *all* the nitrous.

As far as results for Drag Week 2018, I haven't seen the full sheet posted yet. But the class winners are as follows (ETs and MPH are averages for the week):

Unlimited - Tom Bailey, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, 6.85 @ 202
Ultimate Iron - Bryant Goldstone, 1973 AMC Javelin, 7.07 @ 204
Pro Street Power Adder - Les Smith, 1967 Chevrolet Nova, 7.65 @ 189
Pro Street Naturally Aspirated - James McEntire, 1968 Chevrolet Camaro, 8.67 @ 155
Modified - Dan Saitz, 1988 Ford Mustang, 7.71 @ 187
Super Street Big Block PA - Frank Saponaro, 1967 Chevrolet Nova, 7.81 @ 185
Super Street Big Block NA - Randy Heinselman, 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda, 9.37 @ 142
Super Street Small Block PA - Clark Rosenstengel, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, 7.98 @ 175
Super Street Small Block NA - Curt Johnson, 1991 Ford Mustang, 9.11 @ 149
Street Race Big Block PA - James Karger, 1979 Ford Mustang, 8.60 @ 163
Street Race Big Block NA - Scott Miller, 1968 Mercury Cougar, 9.25 @ 145
Street Race Small Block PA - Randall Reed, 1993 Ford Mustang, 8.52 @ 163
Street Race Small Block NA - Jason Tabscott, 1970 Chevrolet Camaro, 9.29 @ 145
A/Gasser - Jarrad Scott, 1962 Ford Falcon Ranchero, 9.16 @ 149
B/Gasser - Dan Chisholm & Ken Stasiak, 1955 Chevrolet 210, 9.80 @ 134
Hot Rod - Timothy Hall, 1947 International KB-1, 9.97 @ 130

Street Machine Eliminator results to follow.
 
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Still haven't seen the full results posted yet, but the Street Machine Eliminator competition was won by Jerry Barnes in his '67 Chevrolet Camaro. They ended up having to run the competition to 1/8th mile, as the track 1/4 mile timing system broke. The stick shift shootout was also ran in the 1/8th, Frank Romano winning in his '55 Chevrolet 210.

The schedule for next year is as follows:

Sept 8th (tech), Sept 9th Day 1 - Virginia Motorsports Park, North Dinwiddie, VA
Sept 10th Day 2 - Cecil County Dragway, Rising Sun, MD
Sept 11th Day 3 - Atco Dragway, Atco, NJ
Sept 12th Day 4 - Maryland International Raceway, Budds Creek, MD
Sept 13th Day 5 - Virginia Motorsports Park, North Dinwiddie, VA

Drag Week final day on Friday 13th...that ought'a be fun!
 
So, that Barra powered Cresta from MCM that Mechanical Stig was clicking 9 second passes off with? Currently in Finnegan's garage in Georgia waiting for Hurricane Florence to bog off so that she can be put on the boat back to Australia.

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Final results.

More than 80 cars out by the end of the competition. Drag Week is tough :cool: Though to be fair, some of those will have been the ones who live in the path that Hurricane Florence was taking and needed to get gone in order to make sure family/pets/belongings were safe. Still, plenty of mechanical carnage was had. One man who dealt with faintly serious carnage was David Newbern, in the Chevy Nova that had the engine out of the Roadkill 'Earle Camino' in it. 'Had' being the operative, as on Day 4 he crammed just a little too much nitrous through it and put a hole in all 8 pistons. This after suffering alternator trouble earlier in the week and having to strap a generator and battery charger to the decklid to keep driving until he could replace it. Buying an engine from a junkyard that he knew was worn out but at least in one piece, he and his co-pilots set about fitting it overnight before Day 5 with help from Mike Finnegan and Finn's co-pilot Daniel Boshears. Then they all completed the drive back to Atlanta for Day 5 competition on no sleep. The junkyard motor was so worn that putting nitrous on it would probably have instantly grenaded it and hosed down the track with oil and parts, so he could only run a 24 second pass on the final day. But his attitude to the whole endeavour and heroic effort to stay in and finish the competition earned him the Spirit Of Drag Week award :)

Now, I'm not saying that using an engine previously used on Roadkill was a mistake...but I'm not not saying it either :D

***edit***

Been weighing up what my favourite car of the week was. That '71 Dodge Demon that clicked of a 9.452 ET on Day 1 like it was no big deal was pretty darn cool. And Blasphemi, of course. And the 'vette Gasser. But Scott Brown's green '53 Chevy Bel Air that ran with the rear fender skirts on all week clicking off low 9s (and an 8.941 in Charlotte!)...that was properly cool. It wasn't his first Drag Week with the car, and hopefully it's back again next year as well.
 
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Bumping this back up for a Blasphemi update.

Unfortunately the engine was indeed badly hurt on that last pass after an un-good gearshift send the revs north of the redline into 'oh, bugger' territory. Finnegan told the story (and the saga of Dave Newbern's Nova engine fragging, along with the oh-so-cool upgrade headed his way) on his YT show Finnegan's Garage in this episode:


But it has now been rebuilt, and sweet Jesus does it sound good...
 
A quick update on the 'grudge' match between Finnegan with Blasphemi and Jon Chase of Hoonigans with 'Tri 5 By Fire', a Chevy Tri 5 gasser running a Chevy LS motor. They finally met up at Pomona this weekend during a NHRA event.

Blasphemi had a problem in the run-up keeping the coolant out of the oil - Finn and friends tried hard to solve it, but in the end the solution was to race with no coolant :eek: Clearly it did something for it though, as in practice for the event Finnegan ran in an 8.689 @ 160.48mph, comfortably the best run that the car has made. The weight saving of all that coolant not being there :p Tri 5 By Fire wasn't faring much better. They arrived with the car basically not really ready, despite the extra few months work on it (the match-up was originally supposed to go down in November last year). Jon had also never run on a properly NHRA prep'd track.

They set up to do a best out of three event. Yesterday Finnegan stomped all over Jon, 'cruising' a 9.1 second pass after Tri 5 bogged hard off the line and eventually crossed the line for a 13.5. The Hoonigans team then changed the engine. They got ready to line up again today, and Blasphemi's starter motor crapped out leaving the car needing to be bump started. But round 2 also went to Finn, giving him the win and the trophy. And leaving Jon to get his beard shaved off :D

Testing passes.

Round 1 link.

Round 2 link.
 
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