JP1738's Stocker and S/G car

[JP1738]

Another update coming in hot before another full weekend of racing!

I've had a whale of a time at the races the last few weeks and won a ton of rounds, I think I'm really hitting my stride this year. Coming off two final round appearances in Stock and SST at the D2 Carolina Dragway National Opens, I kept the road hot and eased up to Roxboro Motorsports Park 5/10/25. I doubled entered my Mazda in 6.0 index and Top Eliminator and made it to both class finals! Ended up taking the runner-up in 6.0, while my final round opponent and I in Top elected to split and quit. A good lick for me financially and a huge confidence booster after driving really good all weekend. I'll put a pic up of all the time slips, but during eliminations, I think the worst I let go of the button in either class was .024, otherwise it was mid-teen or better. Awesome Awesome weekend and I was so proud of the results.

Fast forward to this past weekend I went to Union County Dragway for another round of double entry in 6.0 and Top where I had similar results. Tuned it -.001 red second round of 6.0 index, but ended up making it to another final in Top where I was .022 dead 7 to be .001 behind a 4.60s dragster. A tough runner-up but good race overall. Once again, extremely proud of the result and the way I drove all day long. The car has been amazing since I put new rubber on all 4 corners and my 6.0 nitrous tune-ups have been on the money.

Tomorrow I head to Shadyside dragway to run a class called Baby Gangsters. It is a 6.30 index race on a .400 pro tree that is limited to 28/10.5 tires, door cars, no electronics, and no wheelie bars. It's a challenging class, but I threw the small tires back on my Mazda to do a little grudge and outlaw racing. I'll try to sneak back home and swap cars out in favor of my station wagon to get a few hits in on Sunday in preparation for the D2 double divisional coming up next week at SGMP. Really excited to get back to class racing and join my friends over there for a few days, it's gonna be a blast!

Roxboro staging lanes. Trying to get some of the heat out of the car after hot lapping it and being deep in both classes the entire day.


Lots of laps! I didn't include a few by-runs I had in this pic, I believe I made 17 runs in total, all in a span of about 10 hours.


Finals at Union


Comically small car


Winner's Circle with the entire rig!

[goinbroke2]

Since my junk is still in pieces, I'll live vicariously through you! LOL!! Awesome summer and it's just starting, great job!!

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by goinbroke2

Since my junk is still in pieces, I'll live vicariously through you! LOL!! Awesome summer and it's just starting, great job!!

Thanks brother! I'm trying to strike while the iron is hot! Historically, for whatever reason I tend to lose the feel for the tree through the middle part of the year every year, so I'm trying to race as much as I can before I start to struggle. I know that's not a great way of looking at it, but like clockwork for the last 8 years I just absolutely suck from mid-June to mid-August, so I'm trying to capitalize while I'm still driving good!

[JP1738]

Well I did end up making it to Shadyside Dragway for the Ronnie Buff Memorial King of the South race on Memorial Day weekend but I didn't make much noise. Ended up turning it -.001 red second round of the small tire index race and lost at 7 cars in the bracket race after missing the tree pretty badly. I returned on Sunday with my Stocker wagon in tow in an effort to get some seat time before taking it to SGMP for the double divisional 5/29-6/1. Didn't do great in it either but was glad to make some laps and get comfortable in the car after letting it sit for several weeks.

At the double divisional with my wagon... things didn't go great. The car was pretty good but the driver wasn't driving amazing and pulling in the lanes even worse. I qualified near the bottom of the sheet in both races and fell on the ladder poorly in both.

In the first race, I made a great lap against Darrel Bargeron first round, .012 and 3 above my dial to get the win. Than I ran into the race's eventual winner and absolute buzz saw Terry Taylor. My .007 reaction time and 12.801 off my 12.78 dial was a whopping .021 margin behind Terry's .003 11.235 off and 11.23 dial run. What a drag race but an extremely tough break after I felt like it was going to be my day. You can't get mad about making a good run and just flat getting beat, but it is frustrating nonetheless.

In race two, I struggled to hit the tree as good as I had in the first race. I was .054 and .046 in qualifying, a whopping .050 first round to Brent Wheeler's .019. Brent struggled to run his dial, running a little over 3 above wide open, but I could not run my dial either, going 1 above, quitting to 4 above. Still had a great time hanging out with all my friends and was thankful they decided to run 1st round of race 2 on Saturday afternoon so I could point home and get to church the next day. I didn't capture many photos, I'll post what I have.

I was very pleased to see they were actually performing a good amount of tech during this race, having people do some small tear-downs. They were checking several things like carb/throttle bodies, valve trains and cylinder heads, as well as cross checking casting numbers. I even heard they checked a Super Stock car and warned it for having a wheelbase that was .2' too short. I love to see tech making a resurgence in D2!

Tough race right here!


Getting a small tear-down at tech after my second round loss on Friday!


Speed-handles are my friend


Fifth blown trailer tire this year. Sh!t is getting old. This happened at 1am on my way home later Saturday night

[goinbroke2]

5th tire....is it punctures or wear etc? I'd be concerned after the second let alone 5th. Something rubbing, axle bent, etc?

Or is it the loose nut behind the wheel hitting potholes? LOL!!

Love the pic of you pulling the carb, in the whole picture, there's NO GRAY HAIR?? LOL!!

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by goinbroke2

5th tire....is it punctures or wear etc? I'd be concerned after the second let alone 5th. Something rubbing, axle bent, etc?

Or is it the loose nut behind the wheel hitting potholes? LOL!!

Love the pic of you pulling the carb, in the whole picture, there's NO GRAY HAIR?? LOL!!

I honestly don't know what the issue is. Never blows the same tire twice either side or either axle. The tries were all new at the start of last season, but I do race a lot to be fair. Now I'm putting old spares on it as I blow them, some from my trailer before I put new on and some from my dad's pile of spares.

And yes, no gray hair... yet.

[Randy Wells]

Originally Posted by JP1738

I honestly don't know what the issue is. Never blows the same tire twice either side or either axle. The tries were all new at the start of last season, but I do race a lot to be fair. Now I'm putting old spares on it as I blow them, some from my trailer before I put new on and some from my dad's pile of spares.

And yes, no gray hair... yet.

I got tired of blowing trailer tires, I put 14 ply tires on this year, should solve the problem.

Randy Wells
I/S 5628

[Shadylane]

Originally Posted by JP1738

Well I did end up making it to Shadyside Dragway for the Ronnie Buff Memorial King of the South race on Memorial Day weekend but I didn't make much noise. Ended up turning it -.001 red second round of the small tire index race and lost at 7 cars in the bracket race after missing the tree pretty badly. I returned on Sunday with my Stocker wagon in tow in an effort to get some seat time before taking it to SGMP for the double divisional 5/29-6/1. Didn't do great in it either but was glad to make some laps and get comfortable in the car after letting it sit for several weeks.

At the double divisional with my wagon... things didn't go great. The car was pretty good but the driver wasn't driving amazing and pulling in the lanes even worse. I qualified near the bottom of the sheet in both races and fell on the ladder poorly in both.

In the first race, I made a great lap against Darrel Bargeron first round, .012 and 3 above my dial to get the win. Than I ran into the race's eventual winner and absolute buzz saw Terry Taylor. My .007 reaction time and 12.801 off my 12.78 dial was a whopping .021 margin behind Terry's .003 11.235 off and 11.23 dial run. What a drag race but an extremely tough break after I felt like it was going to be my day. You can't get mad about making a good run and just flat getting beat, but it is frustrating nonetheless.

In race two, I struggled to hit the tree as good as I had in the first race. I was .054 and .046 in qualifying, a whopping .050 first round to Brent Wheeler's .019. Brent struggled to run his dial, running a little over 3 above wide open, but I could not run my dial either, going 1 above, quitting to 4 above. Still had a great time hanging out with all my friends and was thankful they decided to run 1st round of race 2 on Saturday afternoon so I could point home and get to church the next day. I didn't capture many photos, I'll post what I have.

I was very pleased to see they were actually performing a good amount of tech during this race, having people do some small tear-downs. They were checking several things like carb/throttle bodies, valve trains and cylinder heads, as well as cross checking casting numbers. I even heard they checked a Super Stock car and warned it for having a wheelbase that was .2' too short. I love to see tech making a resurgence in D2!

Tough race right here!


Getting a small tear-down at tech after my second round loss on Friday!


Speed-handles are my friend


Fifth blown trailer tire this year. Sh!t is getting old. This happened at 1am on my way home later Saturday night

There have been several posts about trailer tires in the past. My trailer averaged about 1 tire a trip sometimes 2. I was using trailer tires, cheap, expensive didn?t mater. The final straw was changing a tire on the shoulder of i40 with 18 wheelers driving past at 75 mph. I switched to light truck tires and my tire problems disappeared. Still gives me the Willies! This is my experience.
Good luck!

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by Shadylane

There have been several posts about trailer tires in the past. My trailer averaged about 1 tire a trip sometimes 2. I was using trailer tires, cheap, expensive didn?t mater. The final straw was changing a tire on the shoulder of i40 with 18 wheelers driving past at 75 mph. I switched to light truck tires and my tire problems disappeared. Still gives me the Willies! This is my experience.
Good luck!

I've thought about going to a passenger/truck tire moving forward because I can't keep blowing tires over and over. I do suspect I have found a big issue though. When I mounted my tires in the winter of 23 into 24, I did not replace the valve stems. Two of the 5 tires I've blow also had compromised valve stems when I went to dismount them. I've since replaced all the valve stems to try to avoid a loss of tire pressure and over-heating.