McDermott Family Racing

With Northstar Dragway and Texas Raceway both taking a few weeks off, we chose to go to Dallas Raceway in Crandall this weekend. We have been having mechanical issues, so we changed torque convertors in the off time, swapping in our spare unit which is significantly tighter. The old unit stalled at 6500RPM, our spare at 5800 RPM.

Having not been to Dallas Raceway in over a year, and with the convertor change, our first time trial was a check-out pass in the right lane. The track was freshly scraped, and with an insufficient amount of rubber, the pass had to be aborted well before the 330 ft mark.

We made 2 passes in the second session of time trials. The first was in the left lane, resulting in a 5.71, while the second was in the right lane, resulting in a 5.68. Both passes had excessive tirespin, so adjustments were made in the suspension and engine tune. We optimistically dialed a 5.68 in the left lane for our 4th time trial (Dollar for Dollars), however we received a repeated 5.71 with nearly identical split times.

In first round, we faced Max McGlothlin, dialed 7.07 to our 5.68. It was a double breakout pass, his 7.058 to our 5.669. With the track having cooled down and having more rubber, it made for an impressive wheelstand that was on the brink of too high, so a front shock adjustment was reversed going into second round.

Second round brought us up against an enderle-injected chevy S10, dialed 6.05 to our 5.66. The result was a breakout 6.042 to our 5.671, hugging the centerline from the 330 cone to the finish line.

Heading into third round, the density altitude was dropping to near 600 feet, while the water grains held steady at 45. We drew the left lane for the first time in eliminations, dialing 5.68 to our opponents 4.64. The result was yet another double breakout, 5.674 to 4.629, giving us the win.

By the time 4th round came, it was 1:30 AM, the Density altitude was just under 500 feet, grains were still holding steady at 45. We drew the right lane, dialed 5.66 to Don Baker’s 4.74. Don cut a .025 light to our .039, which proved to be the difference at the stripe, as both cars were exactly .01 off, 5.670 to 4.750. Don won the race by the starting line margin, 0.0146 of a second.

Without any round wins after 2 race weekends at Texas Raceway, we came to Northstar Dragway on Friday, a day early, for some testing time. The testing was successful, running in the 5.63 range (5.6197, 6.21 abort, 5.6414, 5.6737, 5.6472), with the exclusion of adjustments that upset the car and were thus un-done. We felt that our baseline (with a few track-specific shock adjustments) was the best setup to move forward with. Once we had our 5 testing passes complete, we moved on to the night’s gamblers race. First round was a 5.6266 on a 5.63 dial, getting the win in a double breakout, while second round gave up a 5.638 on a 5.62 dial via a .0086 red light start.

Saturday was the Racer Appreciation Race. Parking filled up quick, however, a slight miscalculation by Jerry Story (or whomever drives his toter-home) put a quick dent in the plans, high centering the combination over the pair of return roads at the end of the track while attempting to turn around. After multiple recovery attempts, a heavy wrecker was dispatched to drag the toter-home back to firm ground. This would be only the start to a long, long night ahead.

Time Trials started about 45 minutes off schedule at 2:45, starting with No-Electronics, with a stern “If you cannot make the first turnoff, do not run” message attached. With No-E complete and the toter-home still blocking the return road, track management planned a diversion around the blockage, allowing the first session of super-pro to begin. A well-timed oil-down (depending on the viewpoint) coincided with the wrecker arriving, making for only a short 20 minute downtime to remove the toter-home and clean the track.

A number of driveline failures prolonged the night even further, requiring pushback after pushback. Finally, our last time trial session of the night, Quick Door Qualifying Session 2, came at the hour of 6:45PM- nearly 5 hours after the planned start.

First round of Super Pro Card 1 came at 7:40 PM, drawing Lori Zellner. A -.0057 red light start on our side of the tree gave up a 5.6695 on a 5.66 dial, to Lori’s 6.0426 out the back door on a 6.05 dial. After a long turnaround, Round 1 of Super Pro second tech card came at 8:52 PM, drawing Mike Bjorum. Mike took the win running a 5.092 on a 5.08 dial, to our slowing 5.682 on a 5.65 dial.

Quick Doorslammer’s First round came at a very late (for Northstar Standards) 10:15 PM, drawing Art Howard. The dew was coming in fast, making the track a little tricky, on an already narrow groove. Art dialed a 6.07 to our 5.67 for a .400 handicap on the tree. It was all for not, as the track bit us, spinning the tires to a 1.32 sixty-foot time. A pedal job ensued, but with a narrow groove, there was nothing to be had except an abort.

And with that, our 3 weekend, 7-round winless streak carries on to the next race.

We were hoping to get our setup dialed in at Kennedale today, but things just didn’t go quite to plan.

The plan was to hotlap making A-B-A tests with timing, pills, shift times, and things of that nature, to get pretty much race-ready.

A 100-ft Density Altitude, combined with 2 inches of rain the night before, made for an unpleasant situation at the track. Ronnie Crow was the only car able to make a full pull, and out of our 4 passes, none of them got further than 30 feet under power. In the only video that was taken, we actually ‘went up in tire smoke’, followed by the right rear tire rebounding completely off the ground.

After adjusting the front shocks for weight transfer, the rear shocks for minimal hit (that’s a very relative term, judging by the video), and pulling 10 degrees of timing, since we could not connect after 4 passes, we packed up and went home.

We will try again next weekend. Kennedale is having it’s drivers meeting/test session next Saturday, and Texas Motorplex is having a closed bracket-only test on Sunday.

After a very long winter, things at the MFR shop are finally taking shape. The motor was finished and put in the car last wednesday (2-8) along with the transmission, and all accessories were added over the remainder of the week.

The break-in process was performed on Saturday (2-11) with the intentions of testing at Texas Raceway on Sunday. However, the bitter cold nixed these plans, so we did some final cleaning up to get ready for this week.

Currently, we plan on testing on Friday at Northstar Dragway, leading up to the Racer Appreciation race on Saturday.

Upon break-in, we were able to finally realize how used up our old engine block was. Towards the end of last year, we were straining to get the crankcase vacuum to exceed 4 inches, with readings of even positive pressures occuring.

At break-in of the new motor, on high idle of 2500 RPM, our vacuum guage was registering 20 inches of vacuum- with the exact same setup as the poor vacuum as last year. This shows just how much vacuum was leaking out of the old block.

The new engine block was a 75 pound penalty over the old block, but with this newfound vacuum information, as well as the addition of a lean-out valve for the mechanical fuel injection, we feel that we should easily overcome that weight penalty. We also have the option of removing one battery to help make up for about 1/3 the weight difference.

Our immediate goal is to achieve a 5.4x at 125 MPH out of the box.

We’ve spent our off-season so far in a very busy manner. We hope to arrive at the 2012 season fighting with a vengeance. We placed 17th in Super Pro points and 14th in Quick Door in our rookie year. We’re going to try some different things and see if we can’t improve on that!