Zmax Nationals Update

We got into Charlotte pretty early Tuesday evening.We dropped our trailer in line at the race track, and visited with some friends, making plans to pit together with Jim and Pam Marshall  Then we went to teh hotel we had reservations for Wednesday night and through Saturday. We just thought that might not get in until reall late Tuesday, and it shouldbn't be tough to get a room on Tuesday nightr. WRONG! Our hotel had nothing... Who would have thought?  But we did confirm our reservations for teh rest of teh week, so the trip wasnt wasted. Then,, we drove around, found a another place,  got checked in, and went to sleep.

I for one, was particualry anxious to get the car out of the trailer and onto the track. .

Wednesday, we got the track at around 9:00 am and they weren't scheduled to start parking rigs until 10:00 am, but guess what? At about 9:20, they starte4d parking them. So all was good , not too much waiting. And we got in parked next to Jim and Pam.

We got the car out of the trailer and started checking things out. We wanted to change oile, and a few other things. But basically had done nothing to teh engine since we put it in the car. And since it was running so good, why change anything? We do have a couple of tricks up our sleeves, all legal, if and when we need more speed. But for now, we just will drive it the way it has been. And we DO have four consecutive Top Stock Qualifier perfromances. That is right, at the last four Stock races, Nationals, and Points Races included, we have been Top Stock Qualifier at the last four we have attended. We would not be able to do it again, without getting horsepower.

So we did what we could do to qualify at a safe speed so we didn't get horsepower. And we ran a 10:48 in the quarter mile. And that just didn't feel right. It was a little too slow. So we made a tiny litlle adjustment. And our second run was 10.02, oooooops.... That means horsepower on Monday. But it is Top Stock Qualifier for now. We moved things back to a safe setting, and ran again, with nothing very remarkable. But the first round of Class tomorrow will also count as a qualifying round so, we could get knocked out of Top spot. And now that we have aready done it, and goten the horsepower, it would be be sad not to get it.

So here we are at Thursday, running class. We made another tweak just in case someone ran faster than our qualifier, we could turn up the heat. But we ran before a couple of folks who could get there.... What to do, what to do?

We went out and carcked a 9.97, or wsomething close to that. And as it turns out, that kept us in top Qualifying spot as anothre Challenger hit a 10.16 on a higher index, and would have taken the top spot, if we hadn't bettered our time.

Kind of funny, was the fact that when we picked our class, it was either A, B, or C, and B had the most cars, so we picked B. Then half of the people in B, moved to A, or C.  Wonder why? maybe tehy were afraid of us.... But they have good reason to be afraid of us. We won our class.

Now we need to decide what to dial for eleiminations. But we have some time to think about it, because here it is Saturday morning,and we had quite a bit of rain, so we don't even know if we will run today.

So far, a good trip. We added a Top Stock qualifier to keep our streak alive at FIVE consecutive Top Stock Quailifiers, and we got another Class win. Not bad for a 65 year old car owner, and a 62 year old driver!

David