Tech Inspection stories?

[Nick Heath]

I'll throw one on here. It is not controversial, technical, or even unique - but it's the best one I got!

Brainerd Nationals 2002. This was the first year without the altitude factor. My dad's car was running "OK" but somewhat off the pace. It never seemed to like Brainerd. We could go to Earlville 3 weeks later in similar air and pick up two tenths. Then again, this was a backyard built stocker with a stock computer, stock block, "both" of his speed secrets, and years before every piece could be replaced with something aftermarket.

1st or 2nd qualifying session (maybe both, can't recall), Bruce Bachelder is waiting by the scales. He smirks at my dad and gives him this little wave.
After the class (single) run-off, guess what. Bruce is at the scales again. No wave this time, he walks over and says, "I would like to invite you to a little party in the teardown barn."

Here's one of the "stockest" cars you could build and run under the index with, qualified in the bottom half of the field, with probably every one of the same parts they already looked at when he set the record in Fall 2000 - getting called to the barn. But that's what I thought was so cool about class racing. Didn't matter if you were #1 or #128 - you could be spending the afternoon at one of those "parties." And with how many cars were there - maybe the word party was appropriate!

He passed teardown that day. I remember Bruce antagonized my dad a time or two after that with that wave. Never got invited to another party though. And now I wonder when the last party was in that barn in Brainerd...

[Mark Yacavone]

I wish to exert my 5th amendment rights on this one ;-)

[bigshow2966]

Had my Valiant at a bracket race at RT66. Went through tech and was waiting for the line to move to go back to my pit. My old friend Animal Jim Feurer stopped by to look at my "new" car. Car had been thfough tech at 66 a bunch of times. Jim just happened to look at the battery tray and saw the retaining bars with J hooks.

He was nice enough to tell me to fix it before the next time out.

He teched the car the next time and never looked.

[Bill Bogues]

We were at a nhra divisional back in the early 80's at the old houston international. We were testing and after a baseline pass we swapped the heads to see if their was any difference. After that we put the old set back on to run the race. After qualifying red anderson comes over and invites us to teardown. We liked to have wore the head bolts out and my back that weekend. Oh the good ole days.

[GTS340]

One of my very first tear downs was winning class at Englishtown. Steve McGrath behind the wheel. We went to a Ford dealership to teardown. We were very young and of course nervous 20 yr olds. I handed my carburetor to Bob Lang I think his name was.Well I should have emptied it before I handed it to him...oops! Somehow we still came home with the Wally.

Paul H

[Bob Gullett]

At Indy in I think 2013 I was selected for teardown. First the carb. The guy before me they questioned his carb as to the screws in the butterflies were shortened but they let him pass with a warning. Then they looked at mine. Kept pointing to things on it and shaking their heads. I asked them if there was a problem. They said no as they said this is how the screws are supposed to be. Then on to the intake. Said it wasn't correct casting number. I said its a superseded one that's allowed. They were give only the one number after checking with Bruce. Problem #2 corrected. Then the combustion chamber was poured. Was 57.7 cc's. Said it was too small. Was supposed to be 61.2 according to the info they got. I said that's for the 350. This is a 327 which is 57.5. After all said and done it passed with flying colors but not with its moments.

[Tom Meyer]

Don't remember what year, but we tore down 5 races in a row for the record. Wayne Lewis just about had all my numbers memorized. Tom

[Terry Drinkwater]

Not a story but a question, do any of the Hemi Shootout cars get torn down at Indy if they are not running class?

[Spyphish]

2009 brand new John Holt SS/AH car. New driver needing a grade point so I went to the Div.4 Ennis, Tx. Big Joe (RIP), Lil' Joe and Tim Hebert were there and knew I was an NHRA rookie. Took me to tech with them. They knew Wesley, I did not. Their Hemi cars went right thru, my turn. Wes went over the car for 30 minutes, had a magnet on wheel wells etc. "Sir, pull this car over here." Out of line I went. Lil' Joe gave me a shoulder schrug and they went to paddock. It seemed like hours, teams of guys with ring binders, pointing, touching, talking. FINALLY Wesley walked over and said "Son, that is how you build a Hemi car". He used it for class with the other techs. So first time down the track, #2 qualifier in all of SS. Nuttin' to it. Just pee on the cash register. Phish

[1320racer]

isn't the biggest tech story the fact that their is no tech inspection any longer?