Torque's Cheap

Ok so with time drawing close to the KSOS on Friday we managed to run a small working bee last night at the Drag Strip with the goal of cleaning up the timing gear, and I thought I would post a small update for anyone keep track.

For anyone who has ever had anything to do with cabling, electrical, or electronic work you will be aware that ants, snakes and furry little creatures love to mess with anything and everything. The main aim of last night was to simply clean out all the break out boxes along the track, and re-terminate all the joins. These boxes are located at every spot where there is a light beam, use to record your times and mph.

So we have one at the start line, 60’, 330’, two located at 1/8 mile or 660’, one at 1000’, and two at the full ¼ mile or 1320’.
The extra ones at the 660’ & 1320’ are the MPH’s. The timing system uses these to calculate you MPH when you pass both boxes at each length. Eg, it calculates your MPH off the time it takes to go from the MPH to the ET box at 1/8 mile, and then again at 1/4 mile. So that’s 8 boxes on each side of the track, or 16 in total.

To give you an idea of what we found opening the boxes up last night, I took a photo of the first box.

This is what a lot of them looked like. Ants had decided to move in and set up shop. And judging by the size of the dwelling, I would say they opened a hotel for visitor too. As you can see on this next photo the ants have been eating the gel fill from the cable.

The cabling is a standard underground communications cable, and believe me this is a common problem. Eventually the ants would have started to eat through the plastic shielding around each pair of the cable.

Also we have a “friendly” snake that loves to take up residence in one of the final boxes on lane 2. Being as I’m not a fan of snakes, I decided to pass on taking a photo. But that’s a story left for another day.

Not long left to go now.

Cheers
D

As we quickly approach another scheduled Keep the Speed off the Streets this Friday, we’ve seen the week start with the return of more rain. While it has not been as heavy as previous weeks, it has still been disheartening to see. You quickly notice all the drag racers complaining about the rain, and that they hope it is gone before Friday.

However there is the other side that you might not have noticed, that of the staff hoping it leave long before Friday. You see to ensure that the meeting can run we really need a couple of days of good sun shine to allow us to get everything done. While the track needs a quick clean up, this is nothing major. However we do need time to prep the track, and there is that other issue that some members having been madly trying to work out – the timing gear.

As I’m sure some people are aware we have had a few issues with the timing boards and timing gear of late. We have identified a couple of issues with the gear, and have managed to fix some of them. However we are starting to run out of time. Seeing as we all have day jobs and can’t exactly play hooky to go work at the track, we are somewhat limited in the time available. So we have 3 nights between now and the Friday that the KSOS is scheduled for. Wow it doesn’t sound like much time at all when I put it like that, but at least one of these nights will have to be spent going over all the wiring for the timing system. We wont be able to having the boards running in time for Friday, so our main concern that this stage is the ensure the timing gear is all working.

As for the boards we are now awaiting delivery of the new control unit from the US. Once this arrives and we finish the testing to ensure we are all good to go again, we will be back in business in time for the Nostalgia Drags on the 26th of June. (and I think there may even be another KSOS in between there somewhere to give us a test run.) So what happened to the control unit for the boards, well it appears we have a power spike that caused the initial damage to the unit, and its been going down hill since then. But rest assured with the new unit on its way and the current unit awaiting repair, we will have a spare for future events.

Now here is the catch, we can’t open up all the timing gear and clean everything if it’s raining. Kind of defeats the purpose of cleaning everything, if it is going to get wet in the process. So here is hoping that the rain disappears, and doesn’t find its way back to Palmyra.

Cheers
D

All week, since ANDRA and Palmyra announced that the Pro Stock opening round of the ANDRA Pro Series would be held in Mackay, I’ve been trying to think what to right. And to tell the truth I must have started writing this blog 5 or 6 times, but continued to get a little stuck on what to discuss. So here we go again.

This is not the first time that ANDRA has asked us to run this event, but it is the first time that we have been in a position to accept the invitation. We came close last year, but simply did not have enough time to fit the meet into our racing schedule. So you can imagine how excited I was when the club decided to go for it this year. Apart from the standard bonuses that come with hosting a round of one of the nations top levels of our sport, such as the meet being nationally televised, we will be the opening round of the season. Not bad for a track that sits 1000k’s from the nearest capital city.

It has been said that our track will never be as big as the likes of Willowbank and WSID, but we have something that the larger tracks don’t have. There is that certain atmosphere and character that always surrounds regional tracks, and its something that the locals are very proud of. I was out at the track earlier this week doing a little work on the timing system (that’s another story for another day) when a gentleman pulled in to say hello. From memory, and don’t hold me to this I believe he said his name was Gavin. Now Gavin was up here on business for the week, and is from down Sydney way, but I won’t hold that against him. He was driving past the track for a look, when we saw me opening the gate. So he took the opportunity to stop in, say g’day, and sneak a peak at the track. He mentioned that he use to race in Pro Stock a couple of years ago, and had just seen the announcement that we would be holding a round. We only spoke to about 20 mins, but one of the points he raised was his enjoy of visiting regional tracks for the character they provided.

Not long after that Gavin was on his way, after taking a quick look around the track and thanking me for letting him sneak a peak. But it got me thinking about the benefits of a regional track over one of the capitals. Every year the racers that make the long pilgrimage up this way for the Sunstates Nationals, or the Pro Street meeting and even the exhibition events like the Brays, Jet Cars and Nitro Funny Cars all express how much they enjoy coming here to race. And while our track might not be the best in the country, I for one am very proud that racers enjoy visiting enough to not only express it, but to return year after year.

Well now after all that I really didn’t talk much about the Pro Stocks at all, well I guess I can save that for another day.

Cheers
D

What a fortnight it has been. I would love to say everything has gone to plan, but that is simply not always the case when it come to drag racing, cars / bikes or anything in life.

The fortnight since I last updated T.C. started out with me being very excited to see a friends Pontiac Drag Car fire for the first time. However due to a few teething problems with the motor this didn’t go down the way we had all hoped. Although they have everything up and running now, due to my work commitments I have not as of yet had a chance to see or should I say hear it running. While I have been sworn to a certain level of secrecy until the car is unveiled at a race meet, I will say it’s a 540 big block that is certain to make an impact at the track. Once the car has been unveiled at its first race meet, you can rest assured that I will start to post some more of the details, photos and video. Maybe even the video of a certain member of the crew burning off all his arm hairs while spraying meth into the hat, maybe..

There is something to be said about a new car, bike or motor. It’s that excitement of the new “toy”, I mean lets face it, they are toys. No matter how old we get we are still the same as a 6 year old getting a new matchbox car, or a 12 year old with a new bike. Now consider what it was like as a kid when your friend got a new toy, yep that’s right you had to have one too. My friends refer to these two as the new car feeling and new car envy. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this, but if you looked at when we all got our new toys, you would see once one of my group of friends got one, it generally wasn’t long before we all had a change. If we didn’t get a new ride, we made damn sure that we did some large improvements to our current one to make up for it. Depending on how big the change is, depends on how long you can keep that new car feeling.

When it comes to the new motor, it was interesting to watch different people’s reactions. Firstly the owner and crew that have spent a lot of time over the past couple of years building the car are all waiting to see the completion of their hard work. There is the feeling of pride in knowing that you all built this car, while the excitement of seeing it race for the first time continues to build. Secondly there were a couple of spectators such as myself. We are simply friends, and while we haven’t put in the hard yards building it, we are just as excited to see it run, thus leading me back to what I was saying about new car envy. Seeing the car and motor starting to come together as a drag car, started us all thinking about our own projects.

Topping off the fortnight was the short notice Keep the Speed off the Streets meeting at Palmyra Dragway on Monday. As the club has not been able to hold a meeting yet this year because of the rain, everyone was very keen to try and get out there. As a result the committee decided to try and run the short notice meeting on the public holiday. We had managed to sort out the timing board issues last Wednesday night. However as this was to be the first meeting, we expected that there might be a few gremlins around the traps. So we headed out to the track early to set everything up, and try a couple of test runs to ensure everything was good to go. While keeping an eye on the sky and fingers crossed, we came across an issue with stage beams not working. Yet again this was due to a number of reasons, but even more concerning was that we could not get the timing system to start the clock when the guard beam was broken. The guard beam is located 6 inches in front of the stage beams, and not only measure the racers reaction time, but also tells the computer when to start the clock for the run. While thankfully this was not a national meet like the Sunstates, being the first meet of the year for the new committee there is always pressure to find a solutions. After a fair amount of running around the staff managed to set up a solution that allowed us to start the racing from the tower and ensure the clock started as well, and all with 5 minutes to spare before we were scheduled to kick off.

Unfortunately the weather was just not on our side. A brief shower at the start gave us a delay while we dried off the track. And while the staff members were not confident the rain would stay away, we believe it was important to show racers and spectators alike that we are really trying to get some racing happening. Once the track was dry we managed to get about 20 minutes of racing in before the skies open up again. These 20 minutes gave all racers a wild ride. While the track was for the most part dry, it hadn’t been used in the past 5 months meaning it can be a little slippery to start off.

But once the rain came back, the decision was given to the racers about if they wanted to wait and see what happens or call it for the day. As a result it was decided to call the meeting for the day, with the racers agreeing that they would all be back for the next meet to try again. Well even if the weather is against us from time to time, I hope everyone can see the staff members really are trying as hard as they can to get a meet together. Hopefully next weekend will go a little better.

Cheers
D