I apologize to everyone as it has been a while since my last post. From a racing stand point there isn’t a lot to report. We left for the track around 6:30am on Saturday and proceeded to run into a large amount of rain several miles from Earlville. We continued to drive in the rain arriving at the track with significant precipitation falling from the sky. After unloading and loading again because of a lingering shower, we finally got to unload around 9:30 with the hopes of racing soon. We decided to make a run in the open time runs because we knew we would not get our usual three runs in before eliminations. As I suspected the track was very slick because of the cool conditions and we spun the tires at the hit of the throttle.
Upon our trip down the return road back to our pit stall, the INS dragster seemed to, as we call it, “shake/vibrate” significantly more than usual. I no more got back to the trailer and precipitation started falling again. We loaded the car as quickly as we could and knew we were in for a long afternoon. The sky had definitely darkened and looked like the rain was here for awhile. While sitting in the trailer a crew member brought to my attention something that obviously did not look correct. The quick turn fasteners that hold the sheet metal members in place were tearing through the panel. I decided to remove all the panels and take a good look as it was still raining. Once the panels were removed I discovered two vertical uprights had broken around the weld. NOT GOOD!!! We’re done for the weekend. The good side? An hour later races were called off for the day. One more trip down the track and I probably would risk running over my front end. As we speak the INS dragster is at the chassis shop hopefully being repaired, and with any kind of luck will be at the race track again.
