CLASS RACER FORUM - LIVE - From IHRA Pittsburgh

Sorry for the reporting blackout on Sunday. The strong Saturday wifi signal at the track died on Sunday. So here are some random thoughts.

Sunday, it was decided to change from a ladder pairing in Stock and S/S to random pairing due to cars coming and leaving – and the threat of rain that was due later in the afternoon. I liked it – given that the ladder would have paired up many of the same cars again. Along with this, the portable scales died – so all same class cars would run off a dial – no heads up. There were at least 2 heads up runs on Saturday – D/SA and E/CM. These cars were weighed.

The weather was a little tricky on Sunday. The barometer had dropped from Saturday as the front approached – and from the 1 time shot to the first round the temp shot up and the density altitude went up. And a small head wind would come and go. That caused some cars to miss the number. And by about an hour later when round 2 came the temps had cooled – it got tricky………..

An interesting mix of cars – from D1, D2 and D3 – even Randy Eakins from Missouri - and guys from Canada. A number of crate motor cars – that can be very fast! I met a number of new racers from upstate NY including the McGrath Brothers.

The track prep was really good – I saw nobody churning the tires or no bald spots cropping up as the day wore on. It was a surprising incident free weekend. The most downtime – about 10 minutes was to retrieve Leonard Mattlingly’s stocker after the trans broke and locked up. With the exception of the ladder snafu on Saturday, the schedule ran smooth and quickly. I like that about IHRA races.

The PIR track staff was friendly and seemed real happy to have us there. ET shack guys were fist bumping etc. I’ll go back to PIR – nice place.

Not too sure what happened with the Stock – S/S combo on Saturday night. It didn’t start until about 11:00 PM – and after little sleep in the last couple of days I headed back to the hotel for a shower and sleep. Maybe one of the other racers can report on that – one of the Ross Racing family?

And like the rest of the IHRA races, the live TV coverage is cool. I had a few calls and texts after some of the rounds.

I have a couple of “Helmet Cam” videos that I’ll post after I get them edited.

These are the links for detailed round by round info:
• Saturday Stock - http://dragstory.com/forum/index.php/topic,3020.0.html
• Saturday S/S - http://dragstory.com/forum/index.php/topic,3017.0.html
• Sunday – Stock - http://dragstory.com/forum/index.php/topic,3024.0.html
• Sunday S/S - http://dragstory.com/forum/index.php/topic,3025.0.html