Summer is winding down and so is the action. As the air gets cooler and the first few leaves start to change color, I found myself restless: Brian and Chad are fresh off of the crazy train that was this year’s Drag Week, and have probably had their fill of drag racing for at least a couple of days. Meanwhile, I hunched over a computer writing blog items with the sound of the live feed pouring into my ears through ear buds. By the end of the week I was ready to hit the dragstrip for some much-needed wheel time.

Beech Bend has two main test and tune schedules throughout the year: Tuesday nights and Saturdays. I was geared up and ready to go Tuesday, but this week was the week they stopped, so I made my plans: Saturday I would bring out both cars and run them in one night, and my wife would be able to get some pictures as I did the driving. It seemed absolutely foolproof, but on Wednesday she found out that she was going to have to work through the weekend.

Undeterred, I decided that I would bring the Project Raven Imperial out and flog it. The Imperial hasn’t had the greatest year: I’ve pretty much ignored the idea that I was going to have the car repainted this year, it had an absolutely horrific run on the dyno during LS Fest, and I’m deep in the middle of wanting any other powerplant than the 323ci that’s sitting in there now. However, shortly after the dyno, I finally got my hands on a timing light and discovered that the motor was about six degrees out of time and as a result, the carb was misadjusted to keep the beast happy at idle. Things looked promising when I made these small changes, and while the silver brick wasn’t going to be fast (it’s last time out was a 17.8@81) I’d be happy with seeing an improvement. Saturday was cool with on-and-off-again showers. After dealing with a downpour on the way to the track, the sky broke for a while, so I’d have some good, cool air to run through. I ran through tech (“Is it running? Ok. Sign here.“), pulled down the pits to the opening to the lanes, parked and proceeded to prepare for racing: I finished up a dinner from Wendy’s. I pulled right into the lanes and learned that street tire cars would be third in running order, after a bracket class and street bikes. Bonus! Cooldown period! I don’t care if the car has all the get up and go of a lame horse, I’ll take what I can get!

Once the bracket cars and an extended-swingarm Gixxer made their passes, I pulled up to the line. I rolled into the water and spun the tires a little, staged, shifted into first and brake-torqued the car. Leaving on a rather soft .285 reaction time, the car sank in the back and started to hustle a little. Things certainly felt a hell of a lot better than the last time I ran the car…for starters, it revved all the way to my 5000 RPM shift point without bitching or puking. Once the light came on I shifted up and….nothing. The car held at about 5000 RPM and thought about life’s mysteries long enough for me to start screaming all sorts of shit before it finally decided to nail second gear. It climbed second gear just like first and was almost needing third by the line, but once I crossed it I shoved it up into neutral and coasted out to the far exit, pissed. A killer run (for this car) was thwarted by the longest 1-2 shift on record. The first lap was the fastest, 17.5@82mph. If the shift had occurred on time, I would’ve been in the high-16 range. And a one-second improvement with just tuning would’ve satisfied me. But the hanging shift pissed me off. Unfortunately, the next two runs got progressively worse, and since I didn’t want to risk annihilating the transmission, I parked the car.

That’s when I got the phone call that my wife was on the way with the 300C. Perfect…now I can make a couple of good runs to cheer my mood up. Ran it through tech and wasted no time getting into lanes. A guy in a 1990s Ford Thunderbird S/C asked if I’d line up against him, since he had a friend with a late-model Mopar he wanted to shut up. I agreed, and my first run was a close race. He got me on the light, was barely ahead at half-track and I was closing quick when he crossed the line. Next up was a early 1960’s Chevy truck. It sounded snotty and did a decent burnout, but when the tree went green he was GONE…and not in front of me, either. More like half-track once I crossed the finish. My final run, and best run, was up against a ’97 Camaro SS, and it was a great race: got the holeshot and held him off until 330′, at which point he rolled just ahead of me. Best time of the night: 14.66@94mph, which is two-tenths and 10mph faster than the 300C’s last run at London Dragway.

Lessons from the night? The Chrysler has serious potential. I’m not messing with gears or anything deep yet but the Magnaflow exhaust certainly made the engine happier. The Imperial…let’s just say I’m looking at engines to build right now. The A904 automatic isn’t fond of anything making power, and is not liking life in the Imperial. Besides, I don’t care if I was bracketing the car and it was deadly-consistent with a functioning transmission: for the way that car sounds and appears, 160hp is bullshit. It’s time to quit messing around. The Imperial is done for the year and is reduced to occasional driver status. You might see some more of the Angry Grandpa before the year is done.