Heard in the Stands at the Indy

[MFR440]

Giving way to the hijackers...

[MEXJOE]

OUR SPORT IS IN TROUBLE!!!
No sponsors.
:Fans" that don't get it and never will.
Think about this;how many young kids do you know that TRUELY give a dang about old cars, or drag racing.(not many for me)
Now however; the latest cell phone or Xbox GAME....why heck ya!!! They are all over that stuff.
When I was 12 I would beg to go to car shows, drag races, anything to do with cars.
I was drawing sketches of old cars.
Sketching things on my "PAPER!" note book like..
427 RAT!
426 HEMI,
Bow Tie logos,
Spinning tires with smoke.
The list goes on...
And of course I always had the latest copy of Auto Trader "PAPER!" magazine to fuel day dreams of having a hot rod of my own.
I would think to my self....
( I sure wish I had the money to buy that 1969 Z28 for $4,600 Boy! that's
a lot of cash!)
I know, you guys know what I talking about.

Today; text message your buddy in the same room, play Xbox with someone you have and never will meet on the internet, instead of asking what size engine you have I get questions like (How do you know what size a bolt is???).

Like it or not I'm afraid we are on the path of the Dinosaurs.
IT'S AMAZING!

Glen

Originally Posted by MFR440

I heard some good ones today:

During Super Stock CLASS Eliminations:
A Fan: "Whoa! He just ran waaay under his dial! But it's OK, the other guy was under by more....so, HOW did he win?"
His Buddy: "The other guy musta redlit."

During Funny Car:
Young Boy: "Daddy, why do those things flip up like that?"
Daddy: "To let the exhaust out of the driver's area. They don't have a firewall between the motor and the driver, and they get all kinds of oil and exhaust on them, so they have to let the exhaust out."

At the start of PRO eliminations,
Slightly Inebriated Dude #1: "Dude! Where's the Finish Line?"
Slightly Inebriated Dude #2: "Where those orange flags are is the 1340 Ft. Mark. That's the finish." (Yes, he said thirteen-forty!)
Dude #1: "Naw, that's the 1000 Ft. Mark."
Dude #2: "No! THAT's the 1000 Ft. Mark (Pointing to 1/8 mile timers)."
They argued for a while....until they agreed where the 1000' finish line was...
Dude #3 jumps in, pointing to the 330' block: "So, what the H#!! is that?!"
Dude #2: "That's half track!"
And then the fight started up again...

No offense intended to the Throttle Stop Guys, I'm a fan!
During a track checking moment between classes:
Fan #1: "They've run out of cars! Everybody go home. Yuk yuk yuk!"
Fan #2: "They oughta run the cars in the parking lot!"
Fan #3: "That would be more fun than watchin' the throttle stop cars."

So, what did YOU hear in the stands at Indy?

[boostedf22c]

Yes. "OUR" sport is in the trouble. Unless NHRA makes some changes they are in trouble too. I know a lot of you guys hate my car, or don't understand it, or don't even know what it is or what you are looking at. Probably should wait to call the young kids stupid if that's the case. I hear it all the time on here. Honestly you guys that think that are part of the problem.

I had no less than 100 people come up to me saying that they were really looking forward to watching my car make passes again this year at Indy. Old and young. Racers and tech officials. Felt horrible telling them that I couldn't because some bitter NHRA tech official that should've hung up his hat while I was still a child, decided to find some rule written in their rulebook that can't even be met by my car in a safe matter. If the head tech official can't even tell you what the make and model is of a certain car, he shouldn't be in that position.

It's really a bummer that 1 or 2 bad apples can ruin it for anyone. All the money (tons and tons to make it legal to run Comp), time, sweat, blood, tears that went into getting this car ready for this event was all just a giant waste. Sponsors get screwed, I get screwed, fans get screwed. But NHRA gets their money of course. What's even more crazy is, every person I talked too, primarily racers that have run with NHRA for a very long time, said "was XXX XXXXXX involved in this" I said yeah, and most of them said "he's no good" "he's an ***" etc. I never met the guy, however he wouldn't even look me in the eyes the entire time he was looking at my car so that say volumes for his character. He didn't say a word to me. Just rode off on his scooter and had someone else tell me I couldn't race.

Of course this was after the same "expletive" person told me to run my clutch can up to Lafayette to get it upgraded (thank you Browell for doing this for me at the drop of a hat) and re certified, my flywheel back to the manufacturer to get certified and the same with my clutch. So after 2 full days of meeting everything NHRA told me to do, running all over the state, emptying my pockets even more, they sent one their tech official over to me on race day to say "sorry you can't race because of this rule, in which he showed me in the rulebook" Appeared to be written with only domestic V8's in mind. It's a bummer that NHRA is like this, and they aren't going to get any new cars such as mine involved if they don't change something. I race both sides and I'll be honest, the last 2 years of racing NHRA has been exhausting just dealing them. They have an accepted fuel list that isn't inviting to any car such as mine, seems to be at least 10 years old. 90% of them aren't familiar with the cars or the technology. It's sad. There are a ton of NHRA tech guys and employees that are great people, and I look up to them, but man the couple of bad apples they have sure do spoil the bunch.

Sorry for the rant, but as I sit at home, with my car packed up and loaded in my trailer sitting in front of my house, I'm just sick to my stomach that what we worked for all year, was yanked away from us because 1 tech guy doesn't know or understand what he is looking at.

[1320racer]

I've been saying for years, drag racing is dying and for too many reasons to be able to save it.

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by 1320racer

I've been saying for years, drag racing is dying and for too many reasons to be able to save it.

No one listened to you then, and no one cares now

[boster]

Carey , welcome to Indy. Your not the first and won't be the last

[Chad Rhodes]

Carey, what exactly is the rule that they say your are not in compliance with?

[boostedf22c]

Originally Posted by Chad Rhodes

Carey, what exactly is the rule that they say your are not in compliance with?

It's the hole diameter in my adapter/mid plate. Their rules state that this hole can only be 1 inch in diameter bigger than the crank flange diameter where the flywheel bolts too.

That is super easy to do with your domestic V8 car as that flange sticks through the adapter plate and mounting flange of the block. Mine is recessed inside of the mounting flange of the block and inside of the adapter plate. So that hole HAS to be bigger to accommodate the radius on the back of the flywheel so we can safely bolt our flywheel to the engine. Their solution is to run a hub adapter or some weird sort of spacer to get the crank mounting flange past the adapter plate to where we can bolt the flywheel to. Anyone with any experience with a buzzy inline 4 cylinder car knows that it's hard keeping any bolt in that engine, let alone a flywheel bolt. So in their "fix" I would have to run really long flywheel bolts and some sort of spacer. That too me seems way more dangerous than a larger hole in the adapter plate that goes no where except into the back of the block. And honestly it's extremely close to the radius of the flywheel so in the end the hole in the adapter plate, once the flywheel is bolted up is actually non existent.

[boostedf22c]

Originally Posted by boster

Carey , welcome to Indy. Your not the first and won't be the last

It was my 4th year in a row running Indy. So maybe I was introduced to the real Indy.

Interesting that a car that has all the safety stuff that is SFI tagged and certified to go 6.0 in the 1/4 can't pass tech....haha.

[Skypower]

Originally Posted by boostedf22c

It was my 4th year in a row running Indy. So maybe I was introduced to the real Indy.

Interesting that a car that has all the safety stuff that is SFI tagged and certified to go 6.0 in the 1/4 can't pass tech....haha.

Just curious looks like your avitar is a S2000, is that your car?
I only ask because i'v had a couple and used to be on the s2k sites quite a bit. Is your car the first one to make in the 9's. just wondering if was following your car build 4 or 5 years ago.
Just curious.