First Thanks first to John Reed for building a great motor. It does exactly what I asked for, make lots of low end power (or torque if you prefer). Even when I screwed up Saturday in turn 15 and grabbed 4th instead of 2nd the motor still pulled strong without a complaint. This is my "pick a gear, any gear" motor. John is also my modified technical support hotline.
Thanks to Sherman and Michelle for showing up so Michelle could work finish even though Sherm wasn't racing. Sherm has helped me with lots of stuff but I want to give special thanks for the tip in the sealant. My oil pan no longer drips. You have no idea how happy that makes me!
Thanks to Art Heath, Butch King and Bill Hudson. I had lots of new car problems on Saturday. Art swapped out a battery while I was dealing with some timing issues. Later (while I was dealing with more timing and scoring issues) Butch and Bill took my starter out, and figured out it was actually fine. They then reinstalled it and tracked down the back connection that was really causing the problem.
On my last run Saturday I went across the finish line, hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. A couple quick pumps gave me enough brake to make the turn in. It turned out I must not have bent a cotter pin enough and it backed out of the left rear caliper and allowed a pad to fall out. That allowed the pistons to push almost all the way out and dump out all the fluid in the rear brakes. I limped down and got lucky. While I was up on the mountain with the equipment crew unsuccessfully looking for the missing pad, Butch showed up with a pad and he and Bill installed it. So I came down and it was already fixed.
Then when I didn't have enough brake fluid, Butch called someone and short time later a quart of fluid was delivered to the hill. Thanks to Brian Dennis for helping me get the car jacked back up again after it fell off the jack and jack stands due to the soft ground. Brian could see I needed help even if I wasn't going to admit it.
So with all that help, Sunday morning the car was ready to go (minus my electric fan which exploded on Sat). I made what felt like a very conservative run. I never even got out of second gear. At the top Smokey told me I ran a 2:58 and I assumed he was joking. He had to tell me about four times before I would believe him. I finally found third gear on my last run and I'm so happy with a 2:54.
