Car 303 Race Report

Chris Wilson in car 303.

The new National Springs and Fox shocks worked excellent. It was fast in the whoops and worked great.

Still a few small new car issues to work on. The brake pedal would go to the floor and we had to pump it up.

Once pumped it was firm and stopped. We do not have residual valves and think the caliper pistons are walking away from the disks. Will try adding some residual valves. Steering is high effort at low rpm, need a pump upgrade.


Broke the radio ant very early in race, going to switch to a short quarter wave and move it to cage at rear of truck.

Race went well. Caught and passed Moss about RM 6 or 7 then passed about 15 cars in other classes, entire 5-1600 field, some 1-1600 some mini trucks etc. Was not pushing it as hard as it would go except to take advantage of some passing opportunities.

After the course turned north at RM 30 we thought we had a nice lead and took it easy as we were worried about breaking leafs.

One of the 1-1600 cars passed us back but we caught some more mini trucks. On the lakebed we initially ran it up to 102 mph. It felt like it would of pulled to about 105. A year ago without the wing and hood I ran it up to 115 in this same spot. Oh well, it's better to look good with the wing than to maximize speed! I backed it down to 95 for the rest of the lake bed.

Just tried to be nice to the crate 427 crate engine. Passed something that looked like an ultra 4, not sure what it was.
After the lakebed, my left leg was cramping up bad from pumping up the brakes before we needed them. And being too fat for my driving suit did not help, it was hard to move my leg. I was worried about the high speed Mikes loop.
so I called Glen and did the driver change before the Mikes loop instead of after. Turned out that loop was a wet mess.

Glen said it was slick and very wet and muddy. He stalled the engine once in a big water hole. On the way down, he went off at Walkers Corner and rolled it down into the ravine. Munched the wing and body. While upside down the wing scooped up huge amounts of mud and shoveled it into the cab then it flipped again and landed on it's tires. They had so much mud on them and in the cab that they could not find the intercom and had to dig mud away to find it. With 4wd and low range they were able to drive it back up to the race course. Took some doing and about half an hour.

They said Moss waived as they passed. While they were trying to get out, 3 other cars went over and one almost hit them. They finally got it out, 1st gear low range, WOT and as it crested the top with front tire in the air, it broke the front axle when it landed.

Back in the car and next problem is one of the rear steel fenders was rubbing hard on the tire. It took them another 15 minutes to fix.They could not bend it away and had to get out the tools and unbolt it which is fairly involved. Someone got a souvenir.

We met Glen down on the highway and gave them some clean towels, gloves, and tried to unlock a stuck hub without success.

The lights were undamaged but aimed too low now that the fuel load had burned down. We estimate we were now 45 down on Moss.

But truck was working good and was still a whoop eating monster of a bronco so Glen put the hammer down with nothing to loose. The body and wing were already trashed so it was crash or win time in the last 40 miles. Glen passed for the win with 10 to go.

Man do we have a lot of work to do. That wing has a hundred hours into it. But we will rebuild it, gotta look cool after all.

BTW, when I got out of the car I fell backwards and smashed a cholla. 1000+ needles. Driving suit left in trash. Had to have suit peeled off me, it was pinned to my skin. Thanks Dan George for the tweezer work where no man should go.
If you know what I mean.

303 catching 300


[Edited on 3-3-2014 by TW]