A Win is a Win, Even When It’s a Bit Ugly

[Mike Lawless]

Las Vegas BugIn. The last stop on the PRA tour for 2008 and certainly one to be remembered. Our weekend started on Thursday night, October 2nd with a “midnight run” to Vegas. Leaving after work and on the road from Clovis at just before 5pm, we rolled through the night to arrive in town at just before 1am. I prefer doing the drive at night rather than fight with Friday morning traffic coming into town. Less traffic, less stress.
The first activity of the weekend was a tour of the Hoover Dam facility. We’ve been coming to the Vegas race every year for nine years now, and this was our first visit to the dam site. Even though it was built more than 70 years ago, all I can say is "Dammed Impressive!" The humor started right away with “dam this and dam that” when the ticketeer said “Here’s your Dam ticket!” Lots of thumbs up and complimentary comments when we were towing the car over the dam.
On Saturday, we went downtown and toured the Secret Garden of Seigfried and Roy, where there were some new white tiger kittens, and in the Dolphin pools there were some baby dolphins born right there at the facility. Pretty cool stuff. The rest of the day was spent hangin’ out with friends, Allen and Sue Wiess, Ken and Susy Jevec, and Darren and Trista Krewenchuk who were down from Vancouver. We had intended to go out to the track Saturday night to do some testing, but decided we’d rather goof off instead. I figured I’d regret that decision.
After some wind and rain during the night, race day was bright, calm and beautiful. We got into the track pretty early, and was the first in line at tech. Here’s when we encountered the beginning of what would be a troublesome day for getting the program run. Nobody was given the standard NHRA style tech card and the inspectors knew not what to do. Apparently they simply took everyone’s BugIn driver card and did no tech inspections. The waived me off without even looking at the car. I have to assume they did the same to everyone. It became immediately apparent that some people put cars on the track that shouldn’t have as several people spilled oil on the track in rapid succession, (every three or four cars it seemed) causing delay after delay. We made round one of qualifying at 11am, and round two at 2pm and a lot of waiting around in between.
Finally the program got underway, and we were limited only two rounds of qualifying. After the second round, we were atop in the field in the numero uno position with a 12.17 on the 12.11 index and winners of the CompuTronix Top Qualifier prize.
The number one position also got us the bye in a field of 13 cars. I was gonna run the car hard, but it went sideways on the launch for the second time, and with yanking the steering wheel hard, my body shifted out of position and I missed the shift to second and aborted the run. Since it was the second time the car exhibited this characteristic that day, I made a shock  and a pre load adjustment on the rear suspension. In round two, I was to face either my friend Johnny Scheurger, number two in the series, or points leader Marcus Palmquist. This round would be pivotal to decide the season championship. With Johnny trailing by 57 points, he needed this round win to stop Marcus and close the gap. It was not to be for Johnny, as the car just wouldn’t run the number, and Marcus clinched the championship with that win. That put Marcus up against us in round two. After an erratic start due to a bit of driver error, (our .191 RT to Marcus' .077) we still pulled out the win, besting Marcus’ 12.3X to our winning 12.2x. I was lucky to get that win.
Monte Foster was our next guy. I shook off “screwing the pooch” on the last round and I was focused on my job. After I staged, Monte rolled in, brought the rpm up, and then rolled right through the beams, triggering the red light. A gift. I was ready, but it was still a gift.
The last two men standing were Daniel Kurtzman and myself. Daniel has been doing really well this season and was fifth in the standings coming into this event. With a virtual dead even start, with Daniel having a slight .003 second advantage, I put half a fender on him and lit the win light, 12.46 to his 12.48. Other than earning the bye, as my friend Rick Sadler pointed out when I explained that the win was ugly, the final round was the only one that was really earned, even if Daniel was significantly off the pace. However, since Drag Racing is a game of mistakes, my opponent’s mistakes in round two were greater, and in round three, his mechanical failure cost him the round before the tree even came down.
A win is still a win, even if it IS a bit ugly! And with that win, we may have achieved our goal of a top five finish. Preliminary reckoning figures we’ve squeeked by our buddy Scott Bakken to move into fifth place. Whatever the case, that wraps up the PRA season in the west. In three weeks, we go back to Famoso to conclude the ANRA series where we are leading. I still have a little something on tap for my V8 buddies!

[BeetleBug]

Thank you for the great report!

"I prefer doing the drive at night rather than fight with Friday morning traffic coming into town. Less traffic, less stress."

Good point... but I did not know Las Vegas had something called rush hour? I thought people worked around the clock there  Or was that New York?

"Dammed Impressive!"

I totally agree... It makes me feel small looking down that dam dam

"The waived me off without even looking at the car"

They what?? Is this still possible in 2008..... ?

"some people put cars on the track that shouldn’t have"

Exactly! This makes me pissed off....

"A win is still a win, even if it IS a bit ugly!"

I agree.... congrats!

We hunger for rumours... please tell us more. Webb against Lauffer?... Who had the best bbq?.... Who drank the most Coors lights?.... And I also noticed the CB performance engined cal looker that won the new class.... any pictures of it? 

 

Best rgs
BB

[Jason Foster]

"Significantly off the pace"  nice JAB just can't leave the kid alone huh. Congrats on the win Mike. See you next season.
  Jason Foster

 

[Mike Lawless]

It wasn't a jab Jason and no disrespect intended or implied. It is what it is. 12.48 is "Off the Pace" for an 12.11 index, is it not? Daniel did good to get to the final and we all respect him. He's a good racer and has had a pretty good year.

I did not get to talk to Richie as we were both busy with our own programs. But I heard through someone else that the drive went OK, Richie and some other got separated from the main group and took a wrong turn. Again, this is just hear-say. I think he was following someone else who was lost. You know how it goes. I didn't get to see any of his runs or hear any times, other that he had some difficulty in round one and his opponent won the round.

I have no report on the BBQs and I hope others will weigh in on that account. We pretty much did our own thing and had a lot of fun at the our hotel where a good number of the usual suspects were staying.

Here's a link to some pics with some good ones of Richie. Also check out the successive photos of Joel Mohr's "Quik & Dirty" wheelie run. Hit second gear and maybe even third with the front wheels hanging!

http://volksarama.smugmug.com/gallery/6156351_SGKt4#387904204_vnJNB

[Jason Foster]

Mike,
  Well I surely hold you in high regard and would do anything I could to help you or anyone else out as I figure you know. Danny qualified second you know less than 5 100th's off your 12.17 and that final was our first run in the right lane. Daniel launched with a bogging wheelie and hooked to the left he gave it all he had trying to gather it up and give you the chase. We had a fun weekend and were happy with the outcome. Do you happen to know the standings Mike? and if you do could you throw them up. I haven't checked the PRA website.
 Jason

[Mike Lawless]

Jason, Cindy has a rough"guesstimation" and I think that Daniel is in second place now. Don't hold me to it. When we get all the qualifying positions right, I'll post the standings unless the PRA gets 'em up soon.

I "think" the top six positions are #1 Palmquist, #2 Kurtzman, #3 Scheurger, #4 Palmer, #5 Lawless and #6 Bakken.

[SteveW]

Hey Mike, congrats on the win! Sorry I didn't manage to meet you, it was pretty mad with all those oill downs, no one knew what was going on and where! By the time we were done it was time to go! Hopefully next time we'll be able to say Hello!

[Mike Lawless]

Hey Steve. If we would have known we'd be down for three hours, we would have "made the rounds" to try to connect with everyone.  As it was, we were pretty much tied to our pit space waiting for a call to the lanes.....that never came.

I reckon we'll meet up some day.

After several track oilings in rapid succession, the announcer finally said that anybody who puts down oil from that point onward would be shown the way to the gate, and that no make-shift oil containment devices (rags shoved into spaces, diapers wired or zip tied on) would be allowed to run. My guess is the LV speedway will require all VWs to have containment devices next year. I've never seen it that bad before.

[ESH]

Sorry to have missed you Mike but it was a busy day and hot. With Richie's car there were a couple of really minor issues both of which were 1 run specials but with only two runs that was enough to make for a bad day at the track. That said judging by the down time there were a few people having worse days! The cruise went fine though, he and one of the other cars took the scenic route to see more of the sights.

 

[65-2180cc]

Awesome pics!