The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

[Beagle]

that makes sense. pfffft. You shouldn't make old peoples butt's all itchy by having the trailer down there already. They have enough problems just with farts.

[Deaf Bob]

Don't see what it matters as long as you weren't keeping racing from hapening and you finished your run..
Even if I could drive out of the arena after a heat, I still waited for a tow, just to give my car that 10 min more cooling..
Looks like you gt a pretty good learning curve..

[TheSilverBuick]

[Deaf Bob]

What difference does it make if you get a tow from the top end of the track?

[squirrel]

None, but Drag Week rules interpretation is a funny thing.

[68scott385]

Glad somebody had enough sense to realize that being pushed or towed from the big end to the pits is completely different than being towed from the freeway to a garage to be fixed. DF & BL described it pretty good about the nit-pick of the rules seeing as how others have driven trucks through the cracks. I bet they'd have changed their mind a lot earlier if you had tried pushing the car back up the return road by yourself.

[TheSilverBuick]

Day 4 at Cordova. It was threating rain the whole time there, but it held off long enough to get down the track. Though the 60ft and final ET times don't reflect it, it sure looked and felt like it could of been my best run of the week.

https://youtu.be/9bpVtcJKrYo?t=1h33m56s

[TheSilverBuick]

And rounding out Day 5. I ran twice this day with the last run being my quickest and fastest though watching the run it doesn't look like it.

The first pass of the day. I sat at the light so long the camera left me, lol. Ran a 12.69, but thought I could do better so got back in line for the later open session.

https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=1h32m35s

My second pass of the day, which I did do better, though by just a small amount, it was the quickest and fastest I've got the car to go, 12.55 at 112mph and a nice way to end the week.

https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=3h58m19s

Here is a short blurb where Brian and DF talk about being towed from the return road. They mention how in earlier in the week it came up (*cough* cough*) and it was decided it wasn't planned and going back to the pits is acceptable.

https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=2h13m50s

Overall I'm pretty happy with how the car ran during the week and it's performance. I'd like to try a set of lighter weight rims all the way around the car. I'm not sure what these OE big Buick rims weigh, but they are pretty hefty, and I'd like to unbolt my sway arm to see if it'd help the weight transfer to the rear and let me launch a bit more aggressively. I may convert my car back down to the 4.75" bolt pattern and simply use the lighter weight rims that are on the Firebird for the lighter rims. With that, I want to get the 2-step rev limiter dialed in so I don't need to sit at the tree so long to set my launch rpm, just pedal and pedal to the floor and go.

My shifting leaves plenty of room for improvement as well. With the 2-step I want to work on dialing in the flat shift settings, where I can leave the gas pedal planted and just whisper on the clutch and the EFI will cut spark (and fuel if needed) to drop the rpm to revv match the next gear. With that, I may work on wiring in a vehicle speed sensor to the front right wheel and go as far as utilizing some electronic traction control. Much to do, but plenty of time to do it in and to recap, the car drove out there, ran 5 days of racing, and drove home for a total of 4,321 miles in 13 days.

[Deaf Bob]

Randall.. 10 years ago those rims were what all the top guys ran in derbys.. Strong tough rims, more likely to break a ball joint or tie rod than these rims.. And yes they are hefty.. Some say that running these on the back guarantees a broken axle..
Now everybody uses the "SS" rims.

[TheSilverBuick]

I don't think I posted these pictures from Indianapolis here. IndyShiftman took these. Very nice guy too!

[DanStokes]

I hope Indyshiftman knows we miss him on here. Please tell him to check in if you get a chance.

Oh - and great pics!

Dan

[mike343sharpstick]

I've seen some great looking aluminum versions of the Buick Rally wheel ;)
Good luck on keeping the car together, and getting lots of little refinements done!

[CTX-SLPR]

The downside to those is they are almost all 5x4.75in wheels and patterned after the A-body wheels. TSB is running the larger 5x5in Road Wheels and I've seen a few aluminum versions but they tend to be one-off customs. I've been keeping an eye out for a 18x8in set that I can custom order the backspacing on and haven't really any as of yet.

[TheSilverBuick]

Some humor from Facebook

[BlueCuda340]

All that torque, look what it did to the guardrail!