Tell Us About Setting A Record

[Lyn Smith]

I have a couple of National Record stories.First is a Record setting story.Second is a attempt story.Back in June 1978 I took my 71 Buick 455 G/SA Buick to Bunker Hill Indiana to a National Open where National records could be set.Neat little track with a lot of History. Track is still open today. If I remember correctly the scales were across the street at a defunct circle track,and speaking of the scales they were racer friendly to the tune of about 75 pounds.LOL That helped me set my first National Record at 7.82 88.14 MPH..The second story doesn't go so good.Had borrowed my buddy Bobby Dee Myers 1971 Buick Sport wagon to race at the Edgewater Ohio NHRA points race.It was real fast there so I called him and asked if I should attempt to set the record.He said "go ahead, but the new cam is real close on lift". We ran quick enough to get the record,and tear down would be after the first round of eliminations on Saturday night.That's when things started down hill. I had a heads up with a slower O/SA, car but got beat with a bad light. So we went to the onsite tear down barn and a friend I had with me started to tear the engine down and loosened up the fuel line enough to drain some fuel on the intake, then promptly arced a wrench against the + cable on the alternator.We hadn't been there 2 minutes and we had the borrowed car on fire.LOL Luckily there was a fire extinguisher near by. Long story short the cam didn't check and the record attempt was denied. Just another bad racing weekend that most every racer has.LOL