Racer Diary (last half of 2001)

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The last month has been nothing but a long continuous row of 18 hour days. Getting our cars ready - getting Bob's car ready - shipping customer parts orders and finishing fuel pumps and fuel systems for customers plus taking care of the dirt pile outside has stretched us all to our limits.

New DRS car-KLRC car 58.jpg (17368 bytes)
New DRS car (number 2) KLRC car 58 - We started on this car nearly two years ago but have been so busy with customer work that we just never got to finish it. What you see here is the result of many late nights over the last few weeks. Click here for more photos of the car in detail.

7 June 2001 Thursday - Take car to Willowbank and set up for Winternationals. After the set up go to Ipswitch for a national DC meeting. I get home at 1:44am.

8 June 2001 Friday - Up at 5:44am (I need more sleep) Leave for Willowbank at 6:30am. Kathy and I drive up and pick up Al Reed and his brother Brian on the way. Al is driving the new DRS car (number 2) at this race. Jodanna Pullen is driving the DRS 1 car. The rest of the crew Dave Coles, Bob Shaw and Anthony Kopyalar come up in Bob Shaw's car. Bob Wilson drives up in his car and picks up Darren Fahy on the way. The logistics of running three cars is unreal. We get our two passes in each of the DRS cars. Qualifying number 11 and 14 our of 53 cars. Bob W made a qualifying pass but rolled the start beam and did not get an ET and thus no qualifying position. It did run 180 at the half track.
Winternationals 2001.jpg (15147 bytes)
Our pit spot at the Winternats. Bob W had a tent put up next to us so he could keep his stuff out of the weather. That is Jodanna and boyfriend Adam putting their stickers on the car she is driving. The new car is just behind.

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Jodanna doing a wheels up launch cutting a great light. Dave Coles (crew chief of this car) is on the left and Ken is just behind with his hand shading his eyes.

9 June 2001 Saturday - We make one more qualifying pass in each of the DRS cars and the qualifying positions do not change. Bob makes the field with a 6.33 - 210.00 mph (174 to half track) but pulls the top off a valve just under the collet and the valve drops down in the engine. I have never seen this type of component failure do such little damage. The total damage is a killed valve and guide. That's it!! The rest of the night is spent fixing up the engine getting ready for tomorrow. Bob really owes Darren Fahy a lot as this guy is dedicated and focused. Darren over sees getting the engine back together for elimination's tomorrow.

wpe78.jpg (23893 bytes)
The first LOWE Fuel Systems vertical injector assembly. At 45 square inches of area it is big enough to serve almost any application. We are doing the testing on the unit on the school car to make sure the bugs (if there are any) are all worked out. So far so good it is performing very well. The injector bolts on to a standard injector opening and will work on supercharged applications very well. We prefer this type of injector for dragster applications as it allows us to "grab" the clean air from above the roll cage to feed the engine with slightly pressurized air, free supercharging if you wish to call it that..

LOWE Fuel Systems injectors.jpg (25407 bytes)
Two LFS vertical injectors setting side by side.

LOWE Fuel Systems injectors.jpg (17090 bytes)
Shown with and with out the butterflies installed

LFS injector assemblies.jpg (20147 bytes)
One LFS injector upside down and the other the right side up.

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LFS vertical injector shown with scoop tray.

10 June 2001 Sunday - Elimination's today! Up early and off to the track. Al has been driving very well cutting good lights with out a box but elimination's will put the pressure on and a .366 red light was the result. Jodanna had a good race first round and won on a break out. Her win cemented Rod Moors Australian Championship as her competitor was the one who could seriously challenge Rod's hold on the top position. Jodanna lost in the second round with a .717 light. Bob had to race the low qualifier my old partner in our TAD car Mark Brew. Bob dropped a valve on the burn out but Mark laid down a 5.65 to make it the quickest TAD pass in Australia ever. Unfortunately Mark broke a rod on that pass and that ended his night as well. Bob's second valve failure in two runs does not bode well for the new Stealth valves but his second failure causes no more damage than the first - is this guy lucky??
Louie Illoski was racing his Capri (click here) but was struggling with a slowly dying fuel pump. Good luck got him a couple of rounds but he missed the call for the third round and was taken out.

Looking forward to a sleep in tomorrow.

11 June 2001 Monday - Easy day today - Bob comes by and we all go out to Cav's for supper. Bob leaves tomorrow for Canada.

12 June 2001 Tuesday - Unpack and clean up and ship some parts orders.

16 June 2001 Saturday - There is a 4's and rotary's race on at Willowbank and Dave and I were going to go but Dave wanted to work on his new dragster and I had a lot of bulldozer work to do. Stayed at the shop and did some work.

17 June 2001 Sunday - AM with Sam and Tracey and PM cleaning up the shop getting ready for Monday
18 June 2001 Monday - Typical Monday

19 June 2001 and 20 June 2001 - Clean up all the email. For the last few weeks I have been so busy that I just down loaded the email and deleated the trash and kept the good stuff. Well for the last two days I have done nothing but answer 423 emails. Now I am caught up - thank goodness. I have to finish the last chapter of the FI book and now I feel like I can get a good run at it.

27 June 2001 Wednesday - I've been busy outside in my dirt project. In the evenings I have been tinkering on the fuel system on the new injector. I want to get it mapped and ready to go out in the new car for testing. Dave has been working on his new car. See photo below. This Saturday Warren Sichter is coming down to reassemble the 'glide we hurt at the Winters and do some testing on the spare 'glide.
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Dave Coles new dragster.
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Daves Coles starting on his new car. 27 June 2001

Dave reckons the chassis will be done by 1 July 2001 (his birthday) I reckon he has a lot of work in from of him - stay tune for progress reports. We'll see if he meets his self imposed time schedule. (It wasn't)

25 April 2002 Sad to say but this is the first time I've been back here since the last entry. A lot has happened but to put in the correct historical context click here for the 2002 Racers Diary.

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Go to first half of 2000 click here
Go to last half of 2000 click here
Go to first half of 2001 click here
Go to first half of 2002 click here

Go to previous diaries click here