"Tape-Delay Live" from Pageland, SC

[Michael Beard]

I know it's not a sanctioned NHRA or IHRA event, or even a Stock/Super Stock Combo, however, the Classic Gearjammers were at Pageland Dragway in Pageland, SC (about 40 miles northwest of Darlington, south of Charlotte), and there are a few Super Stockers that run with them, so I thought y'all might appreciate some pics. That became a MUST when I saw Mike Boyles' freshly repainted 8-Time World Champ Nomad wagon! It's always been one of my favorite Super Stockers, and what a great and truly nice man! Mike wanted me to tip the cap o Tuttles Body Shop who "did a great job covering a lot of rust".

As for the facility, Pageland is a lil' tony hole-in-the-wall, mom n' pop kind of track, but as you would expect from a restaurant of the same description, it may now look like Z-max, but the people there are beyond comparison, they have THE hardest working kids in the burnout box you'll ever see, and the track works killer. My Volare turns it's best 60' times there, and it's not just times... just seat-of-the-pants, you can feel the car yank the wheels higher at Pageland than ANYWHERE else. They spent the better part of a year back in '07 experimenting with mixing different traction compounds, and they hit on something that works absolutely phenomenal.

I gave the big car a weekend off, as I wanted to try some stuff with my '85 Turismo (IHRA FF/SA, NHRA DF/S). I switched fuel over from Sunoco Blue to Sunoco Purple, and I finally got around to tearing the secondary vacuum widget apart: It'd been making the car act like a sticky throttle at low rpm's. Didn't find anything wrong inside, but I'm guessing the spring may have gone off-kilter. (My wife came out while I was working on it, threw her hands in the air and ran back in the house with her hands waving in the air, screaming like a little girl. Grown men have the same reaction when they see me working on a car.) Put everything back together, and the throttle's nice and free now. Don't know what I fixed, but it's fixed! -=shrug=- The water pump went out 1st or 2nd round, and I fixed that, too. Scary, huh? The car was phenomenal. Deep-staging, the car ran 9.91 off the trailer, faster than shallow-staging at Pittsburgh! Followed up by a 9.900, 9.905, 9.903. Then we got into night time, and after a long oildown, the air got much better, and it went 9.888. My .04x package looked pretty lame next to my guy's .001 and heading for dead-on! No worries... if that's what it takes to beat the little car: awesome!