Hastings

What an awesome event. The track was awesome, lots of traction, long, and not bumpy. Greg Hickok had the Thumb sled there, he did a nice job. We hooked at 6200# in an open gas class. There were 15 trucks in the class, and some really good ones too. I think Jeff is still a bit gun shy about taking off to aggressively, he still has bad dreams about Gladwin I think. We got going pretty well, then he kicked it in. Got lot's of speed and pulled it out to a 312'. There were 4 other trucks that got it over 300' making a pull off with 5 trucks in it. Brad B with that Proverbial truck was within a couple feet, there was also a cheav.......cehvroe.......chelrvor........not sure how to spell that word, some fancy truck with a bowtie on the front which was also there really close. Mr. Petz seemed to be having some clutch slippage going on, not sure but it looked / sounded like the wheels were slowing down and the motor was accelerating??? Maybe that is a "I wish I had Mopar" thing?? We hooked first in the pull off, Jeff took off much more aggressively and man did we get a run going. Felt really good, I heard later we got up to 24.5 mph. I know that is not real fast but remember I had 45,000# sliding on the ground behind me!!! We ended up getting to 326' before Jim (sled operator) got us stopped. Next was one of those fancy bowtie gentlemen, he tried really hard but only got to about 295, we are giving him a break, he is running a small block. Had a great night for a small block!!! Next Mr. Bickle hooked, got going about 100' and "Bang" the rearend exploded. Happens to be he had made some bumper stops that day at work, they say timing is everything cause the sled made sure he made them solidly. We ended up pushing him off the track, rearend was bound up, had to pull the axle and drive shafts to run it onto the trailer with the frontend. Sorry about that Brad (fyi it was a fancy bowtie rearend, lesson: don't try to push Ford power through a tuxedo :-)). Andrew and his pet tiger (rides in passenger seat) couldn't get it to roll to good, ended up 280 something. OK, now for the big tuxedo man. He had a great run going ended up around 317' and blew is front axle and transfer case apart. I am not sure but I don't think even if he would have kept it together he wouldv'e caught us. (lesson, don't try to push enough power to beat a ford through tuxedo parts :-)). Ends up we had the longest pull. All this is in fun, I know that tuxedo man had more power than I did, that is a really good running truck!!!! He will win a plenty of his share when he gets all that power to the track!! Brad, I hope you get your rearend working good again!
Thanks Greg for the great pull, really enjoyed it.

Thought for the day: If you put your hands in a bees nest, you should probably expect to get stung (note to Lil whitey) lw

Michelle Tromp, if you have some video for us............that would be really cool. :-)