Rocky Mountain Race Week 2018 here we come!

[BBR]

I know this is the "Unofficial Hot Rod Drag Week Board", but I'm going to be an outlaw and post here anyway.

Tomorrow, Jake (my 17 y/o son) and I will be leaving for Great Bend, Kansas, the host track for RMRW 2018.

Background: We had hoped to run it last year with nanner, our Yellow/brown F100, but just couldn't swing it with all the other summer activities. So, last summer we came up with a plan to swap the Mustang's 552/C6 with a much more street friendly 302/T5. My boys built the engine, their first engine build, and we sourced a T5 at the junkyard that needed some work. We dropped it in and promptly killed a lobe on the cam. Boo. We swapped a new cam and lifters in and it has been purring like a kitten ever since. It is not a rocketship, but man, the 5 speed makes it a super fun car to drive.

Jake will be the wheelman this year. He just learned to drive a 5 speed about a month ago and has never made a pass at a drag strip..... in anything. ever. So this week will be less about winning something and more about the experience and surviving the event. It will be somewhat of a drag racing short course, but I know he can handle it. I will be the navigator, tire changer, advice giver, and the head of our social media department. lol

I will try to update this thread as we travel throughout the week. The forecast looks like it may be RMRainW on a couple of days. My hope is that will keep the temps down a bit, but I also hope we don't get rained out somewhere along the way.

[squirrel]

raising them right!

[BBR]

All loaded and ready to go later today!

[BBR]

We here and it's hot and windy. The drive was uneventful, except for the ridiculously stiff wind blowing from the South.

Seeing more and more cars rolling in..... From the comfort of our hotel room. Haha.

[Beagle]

hopefully it doesn't blow the rain in ...Best of luck to you guys!

[BBR]

Holy cow what a fun day. RMRW is a fantastic event! Jake made his first passes ever down a drag strip. First pass was a hopping bouncing, 17.5..... and he missed third. Last and best pass was a 14.90 @ 94. He is getting the hang of launching a 5 speed car and the little 302 ran like a top. Tomorrow we have all day to drive to Topeka! So far so good!!



Bad news of the day was Carlos Astor coming across and smashing the wall in front of Jake. Luckily Carlos was well in front of Jake when it happened, so Jake had plenty of time to stop. Carlos was not as lucky. He literally destroyed the k-rail wall and flew about 75 feet off the track before catching fire. He is fine, but the car is totally destroyed. Sad to see, but good that he was able to walk away. Track was down for about 2 hours while they replaced the busted sections.

[andy30thz]

Holy CRAP!! So glad Carlos AND Jake are OK! I saw the pics of the wagon on the front page and saw Jake standing there....(been following your Mustang build)
I can't imagine what was going through his head to see that happen right in front of him... Definitely had to have been an eye opening experience!
Also glad to hear from Chad's report that the track crew was on top of it...I've been to a track where the response was slow and limited...and that is scary as hell.

From 17's to 14's...? By the end of the week, he will have learned a TON about driving, launching and maintaining this thing!

[BBR]

Yes the track crew was on point. Jake also did good by getting on the brakes, pulling over and stopping. Sorta wish we would have had a GoPro in the car.

Today was a drive day so we were not in any hurry to leave Great Bend. We left about 10:30-ish, stopped for lunch in Council Grove, KS. It was hot, and we had the t-tops out. We had a wicked cross-wind most of the route.

Speaking of the route, it was much simpler than almost all the DW routes I have taken. It was pretty much just one back road highway from GB to I-75, the a short trip up 75 to Topeka. No needless meandering around the backroads of Kansas.

Car ran good. AFR at 67mph hovered at 15.5:1 and the oil pressure and water temp were super consistent. Running 2200 rpm at 67 mph, it got 18mpg.

Checkpoint!

[BBR]

Ok. Today was more like a Drag Week day. I'm beat. Haha. Got to the track, had a short driver's meeting and it was game time!!


We got the car prepped and made our way to the staging lanes. Jake made a total of 4 passes, the second if which was his best. A 14.45 @ 94. His first was his best burnout and best looking launch but he missed 3rd. Man he is rowing that T5 like he's done it for years. So fun to hear it bark 2nd and 3rd.

I managed to get a pic at just the right time on a launch that was a wee bit agressive. Haha.



We packed up, turned in our slip, sat in the shade and traced the route on my maps. Then we hit the road. The route, while not overly complicated, did pose some navigational challenges that having a paper map on hand made much much easier.

They also gave us some coupons for a free burger and drink at a burger place along the way. We got there and there was a local car club there welcoming us. We ate and took off because the parking lot was getting jammed up and to free a table inside.

Car has run very well except for one irritating little thing. It will just randomly die while running down the road. This is a gremlin that existed before we left, but it is more irritating now that we are driving it 5-6 hours at a time. Turn everything off, wait a minute, and it lights back off like nothing ever happened.

Made it Springfield around 7. Probably the earliest I've ever made it to a hotel during DW.

Tomorrow we race at a little track from 3 to 9. Then its back here to the hotel for the night.

Everything about this event has been great! I have absolutely zero complaints about it! In fact, I think I like it better than DW. There's just so much more common sense built into how it is run. Haha.

[Russell]

Looking good! Hooking hard! What's his best 60' so far?

[BBR]

2.1 he's figuring the clutch out, but occasionally gets too aggressive and hangs a wheel in the air for a second.

[BBR]

Day 4, Ozark Raceway Park. Today was the day I was least looking forward to. I had never been there and on Google Earth it looked iffy. Boy was I wrong. It was hands down the coolest track this year. It is a shorter track than any of the others so the fast classes all ran 1/8th mile. To keep the averages, they take your 1/8th mile time from Ozark and add your back half time from Topeka to it. I thought it was a clever way to integrate an 1/8th mile into the route. Slower classes (to 10.00) all ran the full 1/4. There were probably more spectators here than at any of the other tracks.

Jake is in Unlimited (ha) so only his 1/8th time will be counted, but he went ahead and ran the full 1/4. He made a total of 7 passes and ran his quickest 60' (1.99), lowest ET (14.11 - twice) and highest mph (97) of the week!! 13's are sooooooooooo close!!

One of the highlights of the day was when the guy behind RMRW, Matthew Frost, stopped us and asked Jake if 1320 had interviewed him yet. We said no. About 45 minutes later Kyle from 1320 pulls up to our pit on his golf cart and starts talking to Jake. So much fun!!

Tomorrow is a drive day to Noble. Longest drive so far but we have been there many many times. Can't wait to see if Jake can pull a 13.99 out his hat!!

[Beagle]

AIR!

Jake has to be pretty stoked about that.

[BBR]

Long day of driving! We left about 9am and arrived in norman at 6ish. It rained on us for a good long while, which wasnt too bad until the driver's side windshield wiper decided to stop working. Haha. We stopped and reattached the linkage only to have it come off again later. We ate lunch, then stopped in an abandoned var wash to fix it better. Later in the day the sun came out so we popped the tops off.

We are having a blast. Car is running good, but I think the advance plate or the vacuum advance in the distributor needs grease. The idle will hang up at about 2000 when coming to a stop. You can blip the throttle and it will come down, but it is super annoying. Fuel mileage was still 18 last I checked.

Tomorrow we race at Thunder Valley in Noble. We have been there so many times it almost seems like our home track. Then we drive back to Great Bend. So, tomorrow is going to be a long day.

[TheSilverBuick]

It blows my mind to see a 14 second car pull the wheel like that