From Shep.

About damn time. We had a very trying weekend. I’ll give a quick recap of some of the major problems we overcame
Msd went bad while testing anti-lag and took about an hour to figure out. Had to rush and swap to the old one.

Secondary injector stuck open and hydro locked the motor bad destroying my starter,spraying a quart of methanol in Ron’s eye and adding a few hrs or work trying to find a pintle cap that fell in the intake port. Big thanks to Gardellas crew for bringing that high dollar bore scop over to find the cap without taking the intake off.

Went to drive up for a qualifying pass and heard a bang and found the r.r. inner axle joint had blown apart. With the help of Sean Ivey , Ron and Eric the axle was changed in enough time to still make the pass..that was the 8.14.

After the 8.13 pass the car would not crank over and while franticly chasing the problem to a relay that vibrated out from the above problem and also caused another problem that we will get to later.

I am getting better at launching with the button now but it is no where as good as I want.

The 60ft is still the biggest problem right now. I am blowing through the clutch while trying to transition from the antilag coming off and the clutch being let out. When this happens I lift and let the clutch out and punch it again. Both the 8.14 and 8.13 passes I had this problem. I ran 1.30 60fts 2 years ago with much less power and smaller tires. Fine tuning the launching and getting some weight out should get me in the 7s.

I ended up having to race Gardella. He had ran a high 7.9 an 8.10. Knowing he has not been beaten for 10 races in a row really put the pressure on . I turned up the boost to go for it in the finals. I got a pretty good light I think a .180 to a .150 or so and the car started coming out the best ever and all of a sudden bog ?? wtf happened? 1.52 60ft Bang 2nd , 3rd, 4th the best I ever have and ran an 8.7@ 173 . Something just did not feel right. After looking at the log it showed that the nitrous did not activate. I believe I yanked a wire out somewhere trying to fix the starter . I am to tired to figure it out right now. I think with the right launch and a tuneup for boost only it will go an 8.5 or quicker without nitrous.

Many thanks to Ron Shearer and Eric for going to all these races and busting there asses to help. Also thanks to all the sponsors and friends and fans for your support.

Congrats to frenchie for setting a new Candian record as well .. but please keep your clothes on

John