JP1738's Stocker and S/G car

[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!!

[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 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.

[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.

[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

[Keith 944]

If you can switch to 16 inch, do so and use a 14 ply tire. the tires I use are like for a logging truck. They?re 100 psi pressure, you have to put in good steel valve stems too. I go for five years and sell them for $200 a set. I haven?t blown a tire in the last 10 years.
Oh yeah, forgot to add: and Slow down! high speeds create lots of heat in the middle of summer on these ever smooth highways

[1arunem]

Make sure they are heavy duty/high pressure rated metal valve stems.

Standard rubber passenger tire valve stems will not hold up.

Ruined two NEW tires on a Ford Excusion after the installer put in regular stems before I realized the issue.

[JP1738]

No pics this time around because I've been traveling alone for the most part and just don't think to take any.

Still grinding but still quiet. Took my stuff up to Roxboro a few weeks ago and didn't have any luck. The car was ok but the driver was struggling. I started the day completely lost on the tree, anywhere from -.020 to .050 in the first 4 hits or so. Girlfriend called for an update where I explained it was getting ugly in a hurry. She gave me a little pep-talk and I ended up making a semi-final appearance in 6.0 index after bulbs of .006, .008, and .015. Unfortunately at 3 cars I lost .02 to 60ft and couldn't run the number. Had my man up front 15 to his 30, but ran 2 above wide open, he lands dead 3 and I'm .007 behind.

This past weekend I took my stuff locally to Shadyside to run their 6.0 index race and had similar results. Letting go great, 12, 13, and 19 in my first 3 hits between qualifying and first round, but lost focus pretty badly and let the tree go by me 2nd round. Let it go .053 and got locked out unsurprisingly. Gotta say that's fairly out of character for me, still not sure what happened. The most frustrating part about it was that I had the car to beat. On spray, the car moved .005 to half track in those 4 hits, which is unbelievably good for my equipment, but I fell out of the seat and let it down. I was disgusted with myself and very frustrated. Happy for my dad though, he picked up the win in the index class and is not 3 for 3 on the year at Shadyside and the points leader even after missing the first race.

So it's back to the drawing board. Gotta say I know I still have a lot of good racing left in the tank this year, but it's getting harder and harder to convince myself I do. What's weird is I swear I'm turning loose and driving as good as I ever have, but just have absolutely nothing to show for it, which is very disheartening. I may go back in my log book to last year and see if I can figure out what I'm doing differently. Maybe I'm not driving as good as I think I am. The car has definitely given me the weenie on several occasions this year which hasn't helped, but I feel I can still overcome a mediocre car, just like I always have.

Anyway, pity party over. Just needed to get that out of my system. I'm going to try to slip down to SGMP this weekend for a big 1/4 mile index race where I'll run 10.50 and 11.50 index. I hope it will pay decently well and have, perhaps, a bit softer competition. Only one way to find out.

Oh, and I blew another tire on the way home from Roxboro, bringing my season total of tire mishaps to 6.