Well it was an adventure as always, but somehow we pulled it off.
I've been working on the car for the past month trying to get the new Darton Sleeved motor built by Kris Starnes in the car. Quality Chassis Shop had to do some major fabrication to get this thing right, including custom motor plates, new exhaust to go around the motor plates, and changing the flanges on the headers for the new Garrett GTX4088R turbos. All the fittings on the new turbos were different, (of course) to make things that much more difficult.
Last Monday I fired the car up, and on Wednesday I went to Orlando Speedworld to shake it down. The converter was too tight. It took over 8 seconds to get on the 2 step. The next day (Thursday) we ripped the transmission out and installed another converter. I put the car on the 2 step in the parking lot and it only took about 2 seconds. At that point I thought I could make the car work, so I loaded up and headed for the NMRA race in Atlanta. I left Orlando around 9:00 PM on Thursday evening. About 3 hours later, I had a double blow out on my trailer. Both tires on the left side of my trailer were destroyed. Luckily my Dad had just left Pensacola only 20 minutes prior to this happening. We called a friend in Pensacola that luckily had the exact same size tires that were on my trailer. Dad went and picked up the tires, and headed towards me. He arrived around 4:30 a.m., and we changed the tires on the side of I-75, and then headed to Atlanta. I arrived to the track around 2 p.m. Friday and got to make a test hit. Right off the trailer it went 8.1 @ 172. The track was really bad and my traction control was coming on all the way down the track. I knew that was all this track could handle, and I left the car alone.
On Saturday I checked the car over and then we went on our mandatory 30 mile cruise. We had about 30 minutes to cool down after the cruise.
First pass was an 8.2 @ 172. Traction control was coming on all the way down the track.
Second pass the track was worse and I went 9.1 while lifting off the throttle some.
Third pass the track was even worse and I went 10.0 while lifting even more.
The other fast cars broke down on the cruise and I knew I didn't have to push it too hard.
I won the race and I am now the 16 Time True Street Champ.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Grueling adventure for 16 time champion