JP1738's Stocker and S/G car

[Carguy49]

Dawson, Congrats on the class win this weekend at the Baby Gators. More to come I am sure.

Hard work does pay off.

[Larry Hill]

Why do you overdrive the alternator so much?

Congrats on your good race in Gainesville.

[J.R. Haddad]

Dawson, like most, I have been following your adventures, especially in
your Malibu. Congrats on your Class Win!! And further Congrats on your
excellent showing in the Eliminator. Six rounds is nothing to sneeze at,
especially considering the Hitters that show up for that race. I watched
the whole weekend and I was almost as happy for your round wins as
I am for my own, almost. Great job on the performance improvements
and the results!

J.R.

[doglover44]

Awesome Job Dawson Class win and semis in Stock!

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by J.R. Haddad

Dawson, like most, I have been following your adventures, especially in
your Malibu. Congrats on your Class Win!! And further Congrats on your
excellent showing in the Eliminator. Six rounds is nothing to sneeze at,
especially considering the Hitters that show up for that race. I watched
the whole weekend and I was almost as happy for your round wins as
I am for my own, almost. Great job on the performance improvements
and the results!

J.R.

Thank you so much J.R.! It's been awesome to get the car working well, faster, and more consistent. While the car moves with the air quality and wind quite a bit, its always been very dialable. Not to mention I've made great strides in hitting the tree a lot better and getting the hang of how the car reacts to different tire pressures and stall speeds. I'm absolutely over the moon with my car and I's performance this past weekend. Can't wait to get back out there and try again!

[JP1738]

From almost not making the race at all, to almost winning it all, this past weekend will be one for the history books.

After getting home from Orlando, I had a lot of work to do. I started by going to my local drag strip here in Shelby to try to get some more seat time and figure the tree out. I've been struggling mightily getting consistent reaction times in the car, and after a very sub-par performance at Orlando, I had to get back in the lab and figure it out. I made some great progress at the bracket race but there was still work to be done.

So after driving 10 hours back home saturday, I raced Sunday, then pulled the transmission out of my Mazda to swap starters and flex plates. Monday I put everything back together for that car including the trans, headers, diapers, plugs, and a few other miscellaneous things. Tuesday I loaded everything on to my double open trailer and packed the truck to head south again.

[JP1738]

Then it was time to hit the road. What an unmitigated disaster.

I left my shop around 4:30 after work on Wednesday. Everything was going well until I had a blow-out on my trailer about 130 miles from the track. Not a huge deal, I had a spare that was pretty rotten but I felt it could get me the rest of the way if I took it easy. Unfortunately, while on the side of the interstate changing the tire, the alternator on my truck quit while it was idling with the flashers on. I was able to get the tire changes and limp to the next exit. At this point it was 11pm and no part stores were open to replace the alternator on my truck.

So I did the only thing I could do. I fired up the generator in my truck, ran a drop cord through the windows, stuck my battery charger on the windshield with the cords running under the wipers, and put the clamps on one of the batteries. I drove 45 mph for the rest of the trip and limped to the track. Unfortunately, the 40 amp charger wouldn't put out enough juice to keep everything running so I could only drive about 15 miles at a time before I had to pull over and let everything re-charge for 15 minutes, then hit the road again.

My 7 hour drive ended up being 13 hours, I pulled into Gainesville Raceway at 5am and slept for 1.5 hours. Then I got up, pulled through the gate once it opened, unloaded everything, warmed it all up (I was running SST and STK, the first two classes out) and made some qualifying hits. Over the course of the weekend I was able to get 4 new trailer tires from Greg Lubben who owns a tire shop not far from the track and a new alternator and serpentine belt from an O'reilley's about 15 minutes away. I spent all of my free time at the track working on my set-up to make sure when I was ready to leave, I could.

[nickh]

Ouch! But hey Dawson whatever it takes to make it right? LOL was watching and rooting you on from Texas (we don't french kiss our sisters here that is arkansas.

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by Larry Hill

Why do you overdrive the alternator so much?

Congrats on your good race in Gainesville.

Honestly? Because those are the parts I had when I put this whole thing together. I need a smaller drive pully or a bigger alternator pulley to slow it down some. That said, it makes 14 volts at idle which I really like, lol. Might not be the best for performance but great for peace of mind. I'll not be flaming out anytime soon.