2.216VTurbo
11-13-2006, 10:27 AM
It started off as a great day. The season finally VW drag event was to be at Fontana raceway and as a 'side contest' there was a gathering of 'street cars' at Nick's Burgers in Fullerton at 5 am. Contest was that the car who showed up at Nick's then DROVE the 40+ miles to the raceway and turned the quickest ET in any class would walk away with $2,200.:D The purse started at $500. and vendors as well as regular race fans started chipping in from the Inet forum cal-look.com until it hit $2,200.
I help my neighbor Pat crew sometimes for his 80"wheelbase #1450 lb turbo/aircooled VW tube chassis 68 Fiat Spyder. 400 WHP and 1450 lbs makes for a very quick (allbeit VERY tough to drive with that wheelbase) car. It has been 9.40's @ 148 once this season and we know it has a 9.20 hiding in it somewhere...
The Nick's event was a natural for him as he is fully reged/insured and cruises short disances on the street. The mood at Nick's was festive and 7 cars decided to try for the side money. Imagine cars as fast as Slowe's, Stramer's, Pachner's, Beuaregaurd's driving 40 miles on the freeways to the track:cool: It was a site to see-except from the cheap seats driving Pat's tow rig/trailer I didn't get to see many of the 'spirited blasts' that happened on the way.
When we got to the track the idle was way high on the Fiat, we'd been there before when the custom aluminum plenum had split a seam along a weld. Sure enough the burble and backfire or two in the manifold during the drive had created three cracks:( A few calls on a Sunday found a race freindly VW machine shop that could weld it-20 miles away. Pulled the manifold and got it there,welded, and installed on the car with only 10 minutes left to qualify for the Pro-Mod class. At the line the car left hard went to the left a bit (like it's done many times) then lost 100 or so horsepower:o 11.7 @105 made him bottom qualifier but in the pits we found that the TB to turbo silicon hose had popped off during the run. We were in a hurry when we reassembled the manifold, but the crew chief certainly should have checked it:o Anyway first round of eliminations, E-Boost controller is cranked to 30PSI (the motor had only ever been to 25 to make the 400 HP but heck, it's the last race of the season and that low 9 is in there) Car left hard (usually a 1.26-1.30 60') and went left HARD:( Kissed the left wall at about 400' mark, what looked like a glancing blow broke the steering box (we think) because Pat had no steering after that. Car turned 90 degrees to the right and headed over to smack the right wall so hard the fuel cell ruptured and a 25' + ball fo fire shot up from the C16 Very scary stuff but the car has it's 8 second cert and Pat was able to scramble out of the burning car without any heat damage to himself. His car had pushed the K barrier back 4' or so! He is pretty banged up but what amazed me is how all the big racing families came over to help with getting the car secured back to his trailer and then decided not to race anymore becuse 'the fun had gone out of it' as one racer told me:(
This is going to be one of those worthless without pics posts but every picture I shot yesterday on my camera didn't store for some reason. I did shoot the whole sequence on Pat's vid camera and no doubt it will show up on Cal-Look.com if you want to check in over there.
I help my neighbor Pat crew sometimes for his 80"wheelbase #1450 lb turbo/aircooled VW tube chassis 68 Fiat Spyder. 400 WHP and 1450 lbs makes for a very quick (allbeit VERY tough to drive with that wheelbase) car. It has been 9.40's @ 148 once this season and we know it has a 9.20 hiding in it somewhere...
The Nick's event was a natural for him as he is fully reged/insured and cruises short disances on the street. The mood at Nick's was festive and 7 cars decided to try for the side money. Imagine cars as fast as Slowe's, Stramer's, Pachner's, Beuaregaurd's driving 40 miles on the freeways to the track:cool: It was a site to see-except from the cheap seats driving Pat's tow rig/trailer I didn't get to see many of the 'spirited blasts' that happened on the way.
When we got to the track the idle was way high on the Fiat, we'd been there before when the custom aluminum plenum had split a seam along a weld. Sure enough the burble and backfire or two in the manifold during the drive had created three cracks:( A few calls on a Sunday found a race freindly VW machine shop that could weld it-20 miles away. Pulled the manifold and got it there,welded, and installed on the car with only 10 minutes left to qualify for the Pro-Mod class. At the line the car left hard went to the left a bit (like it's done many times) then lost 100 or so horsepower:o 11.7 @105 made him bottom qualifier but in the pits we found that the TB to turbo silicon hose had popped off during the run. We were in a hurry when we reassembled the manifold, but the crew chief certainly should have checked it:o Anyway first round of eliminations, E-Boost controller is cranked to 30PSI (the motor had only ever been to 25 to make the 400 HP but heck, it's the last race of the season and that low 9 is in there) Car left hard (usually a 1.26-1.30 60') and went left HARD:( Kissed the left wall at about 400' mark, what looked like a glancing blow broke the steering box (we think) because Pat had no steering after that. Car turned 90 degrees to the right and headed over to smack the right wall so hard the fuel cell ruptured and a 25' + ball fo fire shot up from the C16 Very scary stuff but the car has it's 8 second cert and Pat was able to scramble out of the burning car without any heat damage to himself. His car had pushed the K barrier back 4' or so! He is pretty banged up but what amazed me is how all the big racing families came over to help with getting the car secured back to his trailer and then decided not to race anymore becuse 'the fun had gone out of it' as one racer told me:(
This is going to be one of those worthless without pics posts but every picture I shot yesterday on my camera didn't store for some reason. I did shoot the whole sequence on Pat's vid camera and no doubt it will show up on Cal-Look.com if you want to check in over there.