Last Nitro Fix of the Year

Well it's Tuesday now and i think i am finally rested up from my weekend excursion to Jackson, South Carolina and Nostalgia Nationals at Carolina Dragway. What a great event it was. There were for funny cars that made the trek. I was there with Troy Martin and the Chi-Town Hustler, Kyle Wurtzel had his Nitro Pony out, Justin Grant and the Stardust crew with Joe 'Mini Me' Haas at the wheel, and Dusty (his last name isnt coming to me ) with his Taz mustang, along with some help from Virgil Hartman and John "Bodie" Smith

We left Friday evening from Troy's shop in Indiana about 5:30 and drove through the night. Troy and Kyle are partners and work out of the same truck and trailer so we all travel together in the totor home. Me and Kyle just kinda hing out Friday night drinkin beers and shooting the breeze and before we knew it was 3 in the morning and we were somewhere Tennessee.

We rolled into the track about 9:00 Saturday morning and got parked. Unloaded the cars and just hung out for a few hours. About noon or so we started prepping for the nights' runs...basic maintenance. We fired Kyle's car about 2:00 since we didn't have a chance before we left the shop and we wanted to make sure we allowed enough time to fix it if something stupid happened on the warm up. No problems at all and we continued prep for the night.

We fired the Chi-Town about 4:30 and she sounded nice and peppy. We ran the valves, dumped some more fuel in her and buttoned her up for our 6:30 run. About 6:00 we made our ways to the lanes. We got Troy all suited up and belted in. We were the second pair and we were to race Kyle (which is always fun!). We fire her up, I drop the body, run up onto the track, guide Troy through the waterbox and he gives the crowd one of those signature Chi-Town burnouts. I back him up, pull him into the beams look over to my brother (who was over pulling Kyle into the beams), give each other the okay and now it's on!

4.18 at 174 to Kyle's 4.38 at 180 (1/8 mile track). We get the round win, although we kinda got lucky, cuz Kyle forgot to put his car back in 1st gear after the burnout otherwise, he probably would have got us. We get down there looks clean, but we have a little oil drippin out of her, which luckily just turned out to be a loose oil line coming from the filter.

We take her back to the pits, drain the oil, run the valves, tighten the loose oil line, cool and check the wear on the clutch, dump some more juice in her and get ready for the second pass.

For the second run we run Dusty and the Taz entry, and we know that Virgil and Bodie can put some beans in her so I was a little nervous. Troy gives em another half track burnout gets it back, puts her in the beams and then comes the green...

4.18 at 177 to Dusty's 4.63 at 119...WE GOT THE EVENT WIN!!! WOO HOO!!! what a great way to end the year. I want to thank all the great people and fans at Carolina Dragway as well as Troy Martin and Kyle Wurtzel for letting me tag along. Justin and the Stardust crew are great guys to race with and always a lot of fun to be around, and is was great to meet Dusty and the Taz guys as well and John and Virgil

Here are some vids and photos.....there was a lot of press coverage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH5QD1OxiCY
(look for the handsome skinny kid backin up the Chi-Town in this one )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uL9qRJc-nY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27HP7hHpyKY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw4llV5F2RY

http://www.carolinadragway.com/photo...0th/index.html

http://gallery.competitionplus.com/m...6175&g2_page=1

http://www.draglist.com/artman2/publ..._Dragway.shtml

http://1320tv.com/featured.asp?vid=1...ia%20Nationals

Thanks for reading

Mike