It’s a new game, that’s for sure. Old cars “reformatted.” New cars built for one purpose only.
“Beater” was out there today in his new ride. A sinister black ‘69 Corvette with an intake manifold big enough to house a family of four. “Beater” is going to take on a whole new meaning if that car goes as fast as it looks.
It’s so strong he broke the piece that holds the rear “control rods.” With that much horsepower, control is mostly a suggestion. The piece is on its way to the shop and a welder. He’ll be ready.
Canuck didn’t bring his “new” ’69. Somehow, the guys putting in the roll cage made it two inches too short. He doesn’t need the bad haircut if he happened to flip and slide on the top even a very short ways.
So he’s back with his Camaro and his attitude. He has said he expects to run up front. Today he backed that down just a bit, saying that whoever beat him would have to work pretty hard. Nobody out there in the first eight or so cars is afraid of hard work.
Falcon seems happy with how everything has come together. He and Sweden were talking things over after the session. It was mostly thumbs up.
My car went from Merlin’s directly to the track. He massaged many things, rebuilt others, large and small. He found nearly failed u-joints and rod bearings scuffed and worn, the result of too many years of deferred maintenance on my part.
Merlin also created, using all the same parts, a point, or so, maybe more, not telling, of compression. He rebuilt the combustion chambers from the inside out, adding metal so he could take metal away, creating special shapes in the smaller volume. She sounds so different, feels so different, it’s like driving a different car, and that’s just in the parking lot.
With new gear ratios everywhere, a little more pull here and there, driving her will be a whole different experience. I’ll have to relearn what I’m doing on the track, even if she looks just the same.
But the car of the weekend has to be what Cowboy put together in the farm fields of Madras, Oregon. Madras! Oregon! It as beautiful, and ferocious as anything that’s been raced by our group, in, well, a long time. Maybe longer than anyone can remember. Not that any of the Big Bore Bad Boys spends a lot of time held back by what we used to do.
“It’s just the same, pretty much. A paint job. Freshened the motor after we threw that dry sump belt last year,” he said. “That’s all. Flares.”
But before the hood went down, I saw what looked like a mighty big, all-aluminum block. Wasn’t he running an iron block last year? And the only thing taller than his intake manifold is the tale he tells about the car being “just the same, pretty much.”
Ceegar gets in tomorrow. We’re out on the track at 11:30. We’ll know a lot more by the end of the day.
