Vegas still, and still in the hunt....

We got little sleep last night as we agonized about what to do....... Our broken hood needs to be repaired or replaced.... And it needs to be done today.

Part of my lack of sleep was a lingering upset over the design of the hood attaching system, which we ultimately found has plastic rivets holding the four brackets on the front... to the plastic nose piece... Come on... the leading edge of the hood where it is most critical, anchored into plastic with plastic anchors?????? My 13 year old grandson could have engineered it better.

It was one of the front fastener's that left first, then the harmonics of the front of the hood flapping, popped a number of the other fasteners, and then ultimately enough wind got under it to rip off several more fasteners until none were holding the hood on, and it went flying as it ripped off the last fastener and bracket.

But it was morning finally, and we took off. With a stop at West Coast Rod Shop in Vegas, where the sign says they open at 9:00 am, We pulled up a little after 8:00 am, and when they saw us pull in, they unlocked the door. Talk about Service!! So we picked up new Dsuz fasteners, and a bunch of other stuff. Cost $100 so far....

Then it was across the street to the paint/finish shop where we got monster Epoxy to try to repair the hood. Another $80 and we need more stuff.

So off to Lowes, didn't have have the pop rivets we needed, or the heavy duty caulking gun to do the adhesive, so down the road to Home Depot... And another $100 and we are on our way back to the track.

At the track at around 10.00 am. Several other racers came around to offer encouragement, and help... Jim Marshall who had blown his engine previously, jumped right in and with his experience in fiberglass repair, was invaluable.

We worked for eight hours.... And it was done... Sort of...
The hood went back on the car and we spent the next hours getting all of the fasteners aligned and actually securing the hood. Done !!!! Finally!!!!! My back is killing me, But we got it done in time for our next and final qualifying...

Thank goodness we didn't have to run until late in the day.

One of the Mustangs who had previously moved us out of first place qualifying, ran before us. He didn't run as good as previously. So we were pretty safe, but the other Mustang had waited to be last, and I expected him to pour it on...

We ran our run, and ran our best time yet here, 10.10 Sop we now are qualified at 1.41 under our index (this is an altitude track so we wont get HP for that... ) and we waited for the mustang..... I stayed at the starting line to see what he would do,

After several minutes and four or six more cars, it started to rain, and the wind really kicked up....Racing stopped for a few minutes....

Then they announced that Stock qualifying was complete! That meant that the last few cars,. the ones who wanted to go last after they saw what everyone else did, would not get a third qualifying run...

That meant that we did it again., Three NHRA Divisional races, and three time, we were top qualifier!!

That was all yesterday, and I was too tired to report it all.

Today, we ran our first elimination run, and won. It was a heads-up run against another car in B/SA. We barely beat him. But we won. Our second run was a bye because we were Number One Qualifier! So we ran alone, and now await our next round. We have a few tough opponents possible ahead if we manage to keep winning. We are short of fuel, and have about enough for 5-6 more runs... We are asking around but nobody seems to have it, and the VP Fuel guy who handles the District races here. left early today. And I had expected that like the National events the VP Fuel would be available till the end of the races... So much for expectations.. We may, or may not have the fuel to finish... But we will see what happens...

We are waiting for the next round of eliminations....more later..

David