I just got home. First I made love to my wife. Then I removed my seatbelt and got out of the truck.
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IT WAS A GREAT EVENT!!!
Big big thanks to the hard working threesome, Jon, Craig, and Jack. These guys did a ton of work to put it all together and they did it out of love for our hobby with no pay. Truly a classy pile of people.
If you notice in the picture of the three of them together it appears as if they're holding their hands intentionally away from each other. It's true. Originally they had their hands on each other's butts but just in time they realized the pic would be posted so they quickly pulled their hands off each
other...although once it was hands off the smiles were a tad smaller.
I'm adding another vendor to my personal "Right Up There Next To God" list. That would be Len Freeman of Performance Transmission in Las Vegas, and owner of a mid 10 second GN.
I got to Len's shop in Vegas on Wednesday afternoon. I had a 2-3 flair that had just started before I left home. I asked Len if he had the time to look at it between working on other customer's cars, working on his own car (although Otto, Mr. KLHammet on here, was doing most of the work, according to Otto.
) plus the shop was overrun by Buick guys. His handy dandy crew had it out, apart, new clutches, new hardened drum and back in before he closed. But he didn't like how it shifted so he kept it overnight and they took it out again the next morning, replaced a thingamabob gizmo, fixed my leaking pan drain plug and had it in and ready for me by noon. Charged me only $650. Shifted like a new tranny at the track. The man is a tranny wizard so if you need any work done send it to Len. He'll treat you right .... and hold onto your hats....he's honest. Great combo.
The Silverton Hotel/Casino was beautiful. I was pleasantly surprised as I had a picture in my head of a dump based on their website pic. The bad, bad, BAD thing about the hotel was one of their parking lots was being repaved so it wasn't available and they made all the Buick guests with trucks and trailers park across the street in the RV park. This RV park was beautiful also....just tooooo far away for evening parking lot bench racing
which I personally enjoy. If it's the same host hotel next year hopefully they'll let us use a portion of the new parking lot.
TRAFFIC IN VEGAS SUCKS !!!! If it ain't goin' 5 mph it's going 90. Mind you the guys from L.A. thought it was fine...lol....in Vegas there was 6 inches between cars doing 90 as opposed to 3 inches in L.A. But not good for a small town boy like myself.
Friday evening test and tune was pretty good. And the car count wasn't bad either. We got in lots of passes if needed. Personally my car sucked and I was depressed. The new 9/11 screwed up and I couldn't build any boost on the line. It also wouldn't allow anymore rpm than 2800 so I was leaving the line flat. Got it mostly dialed in and resigned myself to running MPH and not ET.
We were back at the track on Sat at 7:30 A.M. Ouch. But the day was cool and lots of passes were available as most people didn't show up until later.
Leaving at 2800 on the foot brake and achieving a neck snapping 2.3 60' I was able to get a 12.01 and a best mph of 127. Yep, 127. The car would saunter out about 100' and by then the turbo would spool and it would take off. I was looking forward to the bracket race as the opponent would see me so far behind he'd let off and I'd zoom by at the line....lol. But not to be. In my continuing quest for a wall full of blown head gaskets I kept
upping the boost until I was at 27 lbs and with a little detonation #3 let go. Big noise, racing over. The sad part is that I wasn't even going to make that pass...I was going to wait for the eliminations but changed my mind at the last moment. And if I'd waited for eliminations I wouldn't have cranked on the boost regulator. Stupid Chris, bad boy.
It really was great to see everyone again....and I look forward to seeing all you wonderful people next year.