Gee Doug, this is written so well, and is so
interesting, if it was spiced up with about two
dozen pictures with captions, you could print it
on glossy paper and sell it at bookstores. I
enjoyed reading it more than many articles I read
in magazines. All of your message didn't come
out. Please hurry and resend the second part!
Dick J
--- ARDUNDOUG@aol.com wrote:
> LSR List, Friends, and Crew,
> This diary is going out to a wide spectrum
> of people so bear with me on
> its content.
> Most of you know that my consuming passion
> is Land Speed Racing, the 5
> mile straight-away speed trials at Bonneville,
> UT Salt Flats, the 1.5 mile
> Muroc Reunion at Edwards AFB, and the 1.3 mile
> El Mirage Dry Lakes meets held
> in the Mojave Desert 6 times each summer.
> As you know from earlier messages the year
> has been good to our crew
> consisting of Son Brian, Ed Weldon, Kent
> Walton, Mike Gorvad, and Elon Ormsby
> whom we drafted at Speed Week 2000.
> The year began on a mixed note at the June
> El Mirage meet with the
> magneto going sour during a 174mph attempt on
> Don Ferguson's 184 mph record.
> Later that month we ran on 2 open (no
> minimum speed) records at the
> Edwards AFB Muroc Reunion, turning 172mph on
> gas and 192mph in the unlimited
> fuel class. In the process the bellypan on the
> car ruptured from the
> aerodynamic down force it was designed to
> create. About that time we started
> experiencing problems with the exhaust valve
> seats in the Ardun/Merc
> migrating around and spoiling the compression
> leakdown, a problem we later
> attributed to inadequate valve spring pressure.
> Late June saw us on the chassis dyno in
> Visalia, CA producing 327hp on
> gas and 425hp on 55% nitromethane.
> By Bonneville Speed Week in mid August we
> had fabricated a more rigid
> bellypan, shimmed up the exhaust valve springs
> to the proper tension, and
> tucked the spare Ardun/Merc engine in the
> support-truck "just-in-case" the #1
> bullet failed us.
> I was fully expecting the #1 engine to
> self-destruct early in the meet
> but was pleasantly surprised when it made a
> total of 6 runs without us as
> even pulling the rocker covers or changing the
> oil. The week netted us a
> 210mph fuel record, Brian a 181mph gasoline
> record, membership in the
> Bonneville 200MPH Club for me, and licensing
> runs for two of the crew
> members. The engine was sealed after the first
> record.
> Back home in the shop the engines
> "vital-signs" checked within acceptable
> parameters so we started test-n-tuning on the
> supercharged Ardun/Merc in the
> Dragmaster Dart drag race car.
> The November 2-day El Mirage meet was to be
> the season finale. I had
> originally wanted to run one day against the
> 160mph gasoline Vintage Modified
> Roadster open minimum and one day against Don
> Ferguson's 1983 class record of
> 184mph. SCTA rules, however, prohibit changing
> classes at El Mirage meets so
> we decided to concentrate on the XXF/FMR fuel
> mark.
> Tech inspection is the day before the meet
> so instead of electing to
> leave home at 4:00am Friday, arriving at El
> Mirage by noon with plenty of
> time for Tech, for some reason I left Thursday
> morning, still arriving on the
> lake bed after dark. After dinner I realized
> that I had neglected to bring
> any reading material, leaving me no choice but
> to hit the sack at 7:00pm.
> Lancaster weather was showing 29 deg. as the
> daily low but in reality it was
> closer to 10 deg. that night.
> Friday afternoon I got my Tech inspection
> from fellow Vintage Engine
> racer Jim (J.D.) Tone. By then the pit area was
> starting to look like a
> "happening" was in the forecast. My crew wasn't
> scheduled to arrive until
> Friday night or early Saturday AM, so it was
> the same routine, dinner at
> 6:00, sack time at 7:00.
> Saturday AM we started preparing the
> Roadster for the first run only to
> find that the mag was dead after 6 runs at
> Bonneville and the water pump was
> frozen solid in the 10 deg. weather despite the
> antifreeze in the system. The
> record holder in the class, Don Ferguson, was
> on hand helping us prepare the
> car. Where else but in Land Speed Racing can
> you find the record holder
> helping prepare the car that's challenging his
> record?
> We were #98 to run but they were up to #125
> when we finally got to the
> starting line a little after noon. The
> temperature (60's) dictated a
> density-altitude of approximately the elevation
> of the dry lake, somewhere
> between 2000' and 3000'.
> The Roadster launched pretty well, pulling
> hard in low and second. In
> high gear the engine was willing, but ran out
> of real estate about 5500rpm,
> netting a new record of 188mph. By then the
> course was getting pretty chewed
> up and the normally docile Roadster was a
> handful the last 1/2 mile. A couple
> of times I thought that I was about to drift
> off the course or spin while
> overcorrecting. To add to the problem, the
> chute failed to deploy at the end
> of the run. The pin pulled out of the cord OK
> but the pilot chute spring
> couldn't overcome the friction of the cord
> going through the eyelet's of the
> chute-pack. I was hoping for 200+mph but it
> looked like the combination just
> plain didn't have the "grunt" to do it.
> Anyway, a record is a record. We towed back
> to Dan Warner in Impond to do
> the paperwork. Since the engine was still
> sealed from Speed Week we were on
> our way in short order.
> The spark plugs looked about right so we
> decided to give the engine some
> more "grunt" by upping the nitro percentage
> from 55% to 65%. We mixed some
> fuel, richened the bypass pill (.012), and
> started trying to figure how to
> keep the thing from freezing that night.
> That night McCain & Houtz (XF/BFL) had a
> barbecue at their pit so the
> evening went a little faster.
> At 4:00am Sunday Crew Chief Ed Weldon stuck
> his head in the RV door and
> said that I'd better fire up the pan heater.
> The temperature was below 10
> deg. I hit the Onan starter switch (the
> generator was hard-wired to the oil
> pan heater) and went back to sleep.
> At about 8:00 Roy Creel (SCTA Vice
> President, owner/driver of the only
> Model "A" engine (V/4) powered car in both the
> Bonneville Two-Club and the
> Dirty Two Club) stuck his head in the RV and
> asked what quick-change gear we
> were pulling on the previous days 188mph run.
> When I told him that we had
> left the 2.48:1 Bonneville gear in it he
> suggested that we remember that El
> Mirage was nothing more than a long drag race
> and that we drop the gear to
> what will make the engine scream at our target
> speed, 200mph. Son Brian said
> that he'd change the gear if I wanted to, so we
> calculated that the 2.70:1
> gear set would net 205mph and Brian set about
> removing the rear belly pan and
> making the change.
> The coolant tank that gave us so much grief
> at Speed Week was developing
> new leaks, probably caused by the overflow line
> being too small and
> pressurizing the thing when the engine steam
> was introduced into it. The crew
> removed the filler cap gasket, taped up the
> leaking seams, and wedged a
> plastic covered pad around the tank to keep the
> hot water off of the driver
> in the event it leaked more during the run.
> Sunday was a little warmer than the
> previous day, reaching 60 deg. by the
> time were in line at 11:00am. The course had
> been moved to fresh dirt and
> there was no significant wind blowing.
> The launch was a little more slippery due
> to the lower gear, second gear
> got a little loose as usual right after the 1-2
> shift, and the engine quickly
> accelerated back from 4500rpm to above 5000rpm
> after the 2-3 shift. A glance
> down the course told me that we had a pretty
> good amount of real estate
> before passing Glen's timing trailer. The new
> course was much better than the
> marbles I was running on the previous day, but
> the car still was spinning the
> wheels enough to need constant attention and
> small steering corrections. The
>
=== message truncated ===
=====
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Dick J *
* (In East Texas) *
* # 729 *
* C/GRS C/FRS D/STR *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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