NHRA Vegas race

[topfuel]

If any of you watched the race on Sunday you us shutting off Bob Bode at the starting line, one of the most dissapointing things I've ever experienced in my life.

After backing up from the burnout I saw my crew chief pointing at the oil pressure guage, when I looked it had 5 lbs and I swear my heart stopped beating right there. He made the (wise) choice to shut it off and watch as our opponent Tim Wilkerson smoked the tires down track and coasted through for the win.

I do bottom end and short blocks for Bode,so any problem related to oiling is my deal. I felt like throwing up on the way back to the pit area, not knowing what happened. Going through my routine in my head over and over again,
somehow convincing myself that I forgot to put oil in it, or forgot to tighten the rods. All eyes are on me at this point as we tear the engine down to see what caused it. Everything looked normal until I took the oil pump apart.

As it turns out a .50 cent roll pin holding the pump rotor to the pump shaft decided to shear off during the burnout. Thankfully it was nobodys fault but it's just crazy to think how a .50 cent part can shut down a quarter million dollar race car. You just never know what can bite you at any time.

 

[SS_Sean]

I watched and I wondered what was going on. I seem to recall Mike Dunn speculating that there had been problems earlier in the weekend, and you guys were just trying to get the car up there to see if Wilkerson was going to make a pass. I was like, "wtf is he talking about?" Glad it wasn't your fault.

 

[topfuel]

I watched and I wondered what was going on. I seem to recall Mike Dunn speculating that there had been problems earlier in the weekend, and you guys were just trying to get the car up there to see if Wilkerson was going to make a pass. I was like, "wtf is he talking about?" Glad it wasn't your fault.

You're thinking of Passey in the dragster, they blew it up good in qualifying
and just shut it off on Sunday. That's when Dunn made that comment.

We were actually having a great weekend up until that point, qualified 7th in a field of 18 hitter cars. We were #2 after first round of qualifying and held top mph of the round. Car came back clean every time and everything was going our way.

 

[Dusty Bradford]

Same thing can happen to our Buicks. I lost oil pressure at idle luckily. Turned out it was the roll pin in the cam sensor that failed. From then on I always replaced the stock roll pin with some spiral wound roll pins I get from a local dealer.

 

[Joe 1320]

Bummer, but then again it's better to have lost it at idle rather than at the 60' mark. :wink:

 

[topfuel]

Bummer, but then again it's better to have lost it at idle rather than at the 60' mark. :wink:

You got that right Joe.
The engine would have come back as a $25k pile of rubble for sure.

Did you guys see Matt Hagens massive explosion at the four wide nationals?
They sent the car with no oil pressure, hoping his opponent would break and Matt could roll on through for the win. They knew the engine would expire but I'm sure they weren't expecting the body to blow up with it.
That was easily a $100k explosion.

Ever since that incident, NHRA instated a rule that crew chiefs must shut the car off in the event of no oil pressure. DUH...