On 28/MAY/99 I went to Maple Grove Raceway. The results were not good. For some reason I could not break into the 13's! I also had trouble exceeding the 100MPH mark. I tell you the story after you read the timeslips below.

OK, part of the problem was traction, as you can probably see from my 60'times. The weather may have played a part, but it wasn't too bad. It was hot, but the humidity was low. Anyway traction may have played a part in my E/T's, but that didn't explain the MPH. I noticed a miss at the higher RPM's ie: 5000+ and could not find the cause. The next day, as I was walking around the front of the car as it idled, I noticed a slight knocking sound coming from under the hood. I was sure it wasn't rod knock, but I couldn't tell for sure where it was coming from.

After listening with a engine stethoscope a friend and I decided it was coming from the waterpump. To make a long story short, it wasn't the waterpump, it turned out to be the cam bolts had come loose. After the dealer repaired the problem under warranty the noise and high RPM miss disappeared.

On 25/JUL/99 I went to the Super Chevy Show at Maple Grove. I entered in the DOT tire class. Usually when I go to these things I end up asking myself one thing. "Why?" This time was no different. I got there late on Friday, got one time run at 12:18 pm. and didn't get another time run till 3:59pm. The temp. for the first run was 100 degrees, the second run it was 92! Since the runs were so far apart I had no idea about traction. Look at my 60's! Here they are:

I was dissapointed till I got home and checked my old timeslips and realized my second run was the quickest I had ever gone at Maple Grove. Plus the MPH was consistent with what I was running at Maple Grove.

The next day I got one time run at 9:12am. and didn't get another run till 6:48pm. The first run was a time run and the second the first round of Elims. Since they were so far apart, I had no idea what to dial. Even though I only ran 14.18 in my last time run, I figured that based on my last run from Friday, if I could get the car to hook it should run at least 13.95, so that's what I chose. The car I drew was dialing 16.00 so I had to wait for over 2 seconds. As you will see I wasn't too far off my number, but I fell alseep and was late. I lost by .054!