A 30 year journey, and a 2nd chance.

[Cglrcng]

3/9-3/12, 1995 Houston, TX Nat'l Event was re-run, I actually won a round, and then the next round (as the fuelers were warming up, both dragsters and Funny Cars, I get my green and this huge red tinged cloud of unburned Nitro fumes wafts across the track, and I drive right into it, and I am now waaaay out on the other guy (not an Emmons though), I stand on the brakes, no smoke or sliding and just go through ahead and take the stripe and break out 13 hundredths. (warm up nitro clouds are no fun in a slow car..."I love the smell of Nitromethane, but My eyes were watering in the car with the windows rolled up and the vents closed, and for sure my lil' throttle body was sucking in all it could). I actually felt it pick up a bunch and the tach shot up faster than usual, and I could feel the break out coming by half track but there was not a thing I could do until late in the run, as he was a fast car. I just carried him by just too much. He was an A or a B car, I think Blue with White Stripes an Early 70's GT500 Mustang? My mph at 660' was up over +10 from all prior runs and I was down by 6 MPH at the stripe attempting to whoa up and not give it up. The light on either side wasn't anything to write home about, but were close together .036/.037 in his favor. What a crazy race, the car is still running ok, but the cam that is in it now is coming out, because it is not as good as another for consistency (even without Nitro fumes hanging heavy in the air).

Hey, I can laugh about the season from heck as this is 2.5 decades later, it has been fun and a nightmare all at once (still living the dream). Lol.

Next up Baton Rouge, LA -Div. 4 At least the entry is already paid as Div. 4 Director transferred Ennis entry to B.R., LA (where Harvey, Jr. says Imma gonna have some Louzianna Gumbo, and we gonna suck the heads off some crawwwwdads next! And he was surprised I did.

(So far completed 3 Nat's-1 rnd win/0 Div., and I squeezed in 1 Bracket race night in N.M. runner up, 2 in TX so far quarters and semis, and it isn't paying the bills.

Last thing though for Houston... Bob Frey with NHRA Today approached me early in Houston and said to me..."Is it true you are driving your Budget Stocker on Tour?" I said yes Bob, and he asked if we could do a 20 minute segment or something, I said sure, and during some downtime, we drove off property together and down a road by a bunch of trees and they had me drive up and down the road like I was travelling back and forth between tracks for B roll footage, then they sped it up in the clip and the accompanied interview happened about the experience so far, and it was fun, the final cut was like half the entire NHRA Today Episode and my wife taped it for me at home, it was an added bit of a surprise.

Glad I am having fun, because things with the car are going to go down hill only on the racetrack though, and pretty much never gets better. That bug of (what I just found out in 2022, and confirmed in May 2023 - a full throttle instant on off, on off, vacuum leak), that all the time in 1995 seemed like it was an ECU Rev Limit feature has always been there after the finish line since a bracket race long ago in Vegas, is about to start showing up at about 5,200 RPM in each gear, or actually anytime I go pedal to the metal (full throttle), for 2 seconds or more. and it is going to drive me crazy and cost a lot of money and zero good racing results.

It also affects the bracket racing, but not as much as the class racing. And it gets progressively worse over time.