NMCA Bradenton 2009 Report

My wife, youngest daughter, crew chief/shop rat, and I left at 6AM on Wednesday for the 1100+ mile trek to Bradenton, Fl. I managed to sneak my 84' rig through the Florida Port Authority without an oversize license and had many a stressful pass of a Florida DOT cop sitting in the median looking for truck violations. My son (Dallas) no longer races with me — and so I had to do all of the driving. I stopped at a Flying J in Tallahassee and spent the night.

On Thursday morning I took on 200 gals of diesel, dumped the waste tanks, and on to Bradenton. We got there at around 1PM parked the rig next to Skip Koester and Kurt Neighbor — and set up in the sand pits.

Friday we teched in the cars and made our first T&T pass. My car had a lot of changes done to it over the winter — and we'd not had one opportunity to T&T it. On the first T&T pass the car turned hard left and started to break up between 5000-5500 RPM. Back in the pits we checked under the valve covers and all looked well. I put it on a hard surface (all pits are sand) and rev'd the motor and it broke up at 5400 — which happened to be where my launch chip (I'm a 4-speed) was set. I turned the chip up to 6800 and the motor broke up there. OK — obvious the MSD box was stuck in the launch stage. Further diagnosis showed the the line-lock button was wired wrong when the transmission/shifter was swapped. That was fixed and we focused on the Aspen Preston was running in NMC.

Preston goes out and makes his pass and never returns to the pits. I get on the scooter and he's at the top of the track. He says that the oil pressure was fluxuating and now the car won't start. I get Skip to help tow him back and we start looking at what was wrong. The no start is because the neutral safety wire wasn't put on tight enough when Preston swapped in the new motor. The lack of oil pressure is explained as being "great" pressure and then the gauge drops to 0 fast then back up to "great" — all in less than a second. Damon and I feel like it must be a sender on the electronic gauge — because nothing bounces to 70+PSI to 0 and back in less than a second if a true oil pressure problem. Preston goes back out a again and make another pass. He comes back and says the same — and that is when we asked to define "great" oil pressure. He says it never got higher than 30 PSI. Far from "Great"! So I have him put the car on jack stands, pull the oil filter, and cut it open. Sure enough — gold flecks from the new crank bearings. The car goes in the trailer and he's done. Dallas pulled the motor apart yesterday — and it is trashed on the three passes with the great 30PSI oil pressure.

Back to my car, I make a second T&T pass and do a 10.5 slip sliding all over the track. I make a third pass and the car hooks — and I get a 9.56 pass — lifting a little. I'd declared B/FX — which is 9.5. My new Crew chief counts the number of clicks for my brand new Double Action QA1 shocks — and tells me there is something wrong when he's exceeded 50 clicks. Yes, it is true, he went fifty clicks on my left shock before mentioning that something was wrong. Great — the adjustor of the shock is now busted in the high position and the shock doesn't have a stop at either end. We put the car away for the night.

Saturday is Qualifying Day. There is a terrible wind that shifts from head to cross wind — and to make it worse there is a farmer at the end of the track plowing the field so that there's a sand storm — complete with mini-dunes starting to form at the very top. It is obvious that the track and the farmer must be at war for this to coincidentally being plow day.

My first pass has me spinning the wheels badly for a 10.2 pass in a 14MPH head wind. Everyone appeared to be slow in the first pass as the weather stations said the air was 3000'. My next pass is a 9.68 into a 28MPH head wind. For the third pass, sand from the plowing is collecting at the top of the track, there's a bad headwind, and while we're in line they decide that this is the perfect time to run the jet car. After the Jet car fogs the lanes with unburnt JP4 and blows the sand everywhere — there are immediately two wrecks in the class running just before us. Many NSS drivers pull out of line and decide not to make their Third Qualifying pass. Kurt Neighbor, Skip Koester, Barry Camp, and two other cars pull out before me. Of those remaining — a couple (Doug Duell & Double O Joe) say they were going to make an 1/8 mile pass because they were still working out issues — and use the first pull off. I don't know who pulled out after me. We put the car away for the night.

Sunday morning is raining bad. It stops at around noon and they start to dry off the track. The first car goes down the green track at 3:30PM. I believe it was about 5PM when the 18 NSS cars started to run — and I drew Kurt Neighbor — both B/FX cars. I had a .062 light and saw the red bulb in Kurt's lane as I went by. We both aired the cars out to where I did a 9.4 and Kurt and 9.2. First round to me.

The second round I went against the Black Horse Thunderbolt (A/FX). I left first with a .032 light and the Dark horse car caught me at the top and paced me. I decided I needed to put a fender on him and did. I got a 9.52 and he broke out with a 9.22. Second Round to me.

I got a bye in the Next round. I wanted the left lane — but just before the five NMC cars that ran before us — it was time to fog the track with the Jet Car. We sat in the staging lanes while our cars filled up with jet fumes in the prerace burn. Thanx NMCA! I was going to take the right lane (I'd been put into it the first two rounds by the better qualify cars) but the jet car ran there — so I switched to the left. My low 1.3 60's turned into a 1.64 60' (a record worse for my car) and I ran a slip-sliding 10.5 on my 9.5.

The hot lapped Semi's had me against the Princess, and Skip against Doug Duell. The track was still greasy and my car wouldn't hook — I went from close to the wall to close to the center all of the way down — hoping to get Stephie to break out (she'd had two 9.99s and a 9.96 on the brakes for the previous three rounds) — but she too was having problems. Even with her .320 light and 10.5 on a 10.0 pass — she had a better package than my 10.5 on a 9.5. I'm going to take some of the blame as I didn't have enough RPM when I launched — but the track was like an ice skating rink for a ladder bar 4-speed.

Skip's Wife Washed His Helmet In Hot Water The Night Before

So at 9:30PM my night was over. I collected my $200, packed up and left. There was another bad accident after my pass, and Skip won the event over the Princess. I was whipped and only made it 135 miles the first night and 1000 miles the next day. Got home 9:30PM Monday night.

That's my Story and I'm sticking to it. Three important NSS Racing Sites to Bookmark are:

1. News Site

2. Events, Photos, and Blog (all NSS Drivers allowed a blog) site

3. NSS Driver's Lounge

Please forward this information to all of your NSS Racing friends.

Dave 'Old Hippie' Schultz #7601

The site listing all of the NSS events for 2009 is at www.nssracing.ning.com. Anyone who is registered (and all NSS Racers should be) can list a NSS Event — along with their track photos and videos. The events don’t even have to be races — if you have a club dinner, awards dinner or any other type of NSS Event — please list it.

I’ve gotten the ball rolling by listing the 7 NMCA events plus the Mopars at the Strip. However, I know that there are people with an interest in the Monster Mopar, and NSS/NMC race in Dallas in April, a NSS Race in Alabama that was scheduled the same day as the Monster, all of the Classics, the 422 races, the Goodguys Races, and the two Nostalgia races in Kansas City.

I set up the site up for all to participate in the uploading of the events, videos, and track photos — and not for me to have to do it all. I encourage those who might have a stake in a particular NSS event to quickly list that event so you lose less in a date conflict — and for all racers to use this site to see all of the NSS Events listed in chronological order — as there are a few date conflicts again this year.

I’ve gone to great lengths to promote this site with magazines and the NMCA — who have promised to feature the site; and with Google. Do a search for “Nostalgia Super Stock” and you will see that the sites I’ve set up are steadily climbing to the top. This site will be the one-stop place to see the entire year’s NSS Racing Events, track photos and videos. In the last couple of days, another 100 photos have been uploaded as a dozen or so videos. Some new racer adds a new photo, event, or video (or a comment to another driver’s page) — so you ought to consider regular visits.

Also, the 100 photos with the most stars votes are the photos used in the photo show. Anyone (not just members) can embed the photo show on their web site — and many have so far. I suggest you vote on your ten to 25 favorite photos — to ensure they’re included in the photo show.

Again, there are three parts to the NSS-Racing.com Community:

• The News site
• The Forum and the
• Event, Photo, and Video site

If you haven’t yet registered with the forum and Event/Photo/Video site — I encourage you to do so, and to invite those NSS racers you don’t yet see in the membership.

Time to Think About 2010 Wall Calendars

While the 2009 Wall Calendars are still selling like hot cakes, it is time to think of getting your NSS or NMC in the 2010 Calendar. These are high quality Wall Calendars that not only promote NSS and NMC racing by having 100s on the walls of cubicles, dens, kitchens, garages, and trailers — but it also helps pay the bills of hosting this site.

Only the best 13 NSS photos and the best 13 NMC photos make it to the Wall Calendars. I and my daughter took many of the photos for the 2009 Wall Calendar — but there are only so many events we go to, and it is hard to take photos and also race. the car During the 2009 racing season, if you have a worthy track photo please have it digitally scanned  (Kinkos if you don’t have a good scanner) at the highest resolution possible (but at least 300 DPI) and email it to me (attach the file) at davetheoldhippie@gmail.com with particulars of you and the car.

If you have a good digital SLR camera and a telephoto lens, see if you can get someone to take photos of your (and other in your class) car. The photos below were taken with a Canon D30, 150mm lens, and I was sitting in the top row of the bleachers just slightly ahead of the starting line. I set the program to speed, and when both cars stage I hold the shutter button halfway down to focus and set lighting. As soon as the car takes off I hold the shutter down and average about 3-4 photos per launch.

Here’s the Important Part

Give me the photo file right from the camera. Don’t try to crop, don’t play with the hue or saturation, and don’t resave — as the compression from resaving a JPG file will cause ghosting — especially in reds. I need to be able to crop the photo to 9.5: X 11.0 at 200DPI. I can’t use anything less than that and have a calendar to the high standards expected of me. Center the car in the image and have it take up about 2/3 of the width — so there is room to crop without cutting off the car.

Here’s to hoping your car is featured in the 2010 Wall Calendar.

Welcome, you have found the first of two best sites for Nostalgia Super Stock Racing. This site is primarily for current news. The other site is located at http://nssracing.ning.com/, and it is an interactive site that offers members the ability to upload NSS photos and NSS Videos, NSS events, communicate among each other, and keep a team blog. Finally, there's a NSS forum and a Free Classified Ad site.

We invite you to spend some time browsing around, and getting familiar with all of the Features and benefits offered to drivers, teams, and fans of Nostalgia Super Stock Drag Racing.

The Old Hippie

There is a new classified ad web site with categories for race parts, and car parts of all makes — which are also used in racing. Anyone can place free classified ads with up to six photos (uploaded from their computer) per ad.

I personally uploaded ads for (Mostly Mopar) new aluminum block and dozens of iron blocks; new race pistons and rods; new electric water pumps and oil pans; new MSD Distributors and fabricated valve covers; Billet transmission drum and transmission cores; heads and cranks (new and used); carburetors and a whole lot more. Even complete racing engines built by Damon Kuhn of Diamondback Engines. All cheaper than you can get elsewhere.

You are invited to both check out the ads already placed — and to place you own by clicking here.

When you visit you will not only notice categories for various makes of cars for sale, various makes of car parts for sale, and many racing sub-categories — but categories for trucks, trailers, motor homes, boats, motorcycles, memorabilia, employment, books, movies — and just about anything else a person might buy or sell.

Why not take a few minutes and grab your digital camera for a stroll through your garage, shop, attic, and/or shed. Your junk may be someone else’s treasure. Turn it into cash! This is completely free, there are no strings attached, and frankly I would appreciate your help with building this site by listing your items (or services offered) for sale.

This is the same site that hosts our “Driver’s Lounge” — a NSS Driver’s forum. The forum is useful for getting up to date information regarding the NSS class — and opinions on the rule interpretations. If you haven’t stopped by for a little visit — please consider doing so.

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And Earn Money for You or Your Favorite Charity.

There is a free service called Squidoo that has a very kool product. In about 30 minutes, anyone — regardless of their computer experience — can build a free web page (Lens) of their Nostalgia Super Stock Car and team, complete with photos and videos. An example of my Big Red Ram can be found at www.squidoo.com/bigredram

The cool part is that when people visit your web page (referred to as a Lens) and click on a banner of an advertiser, you earn revenue. You can either have that revenue deposited into your Paypal account monthly — or select the charity for it to be donated to.

Another example of Squidoo lens is one that I whipped up in less than 15 minutes for the www.NSS-Monster.com site. You can check it out at www.squidoo.com/nostalgiasuperstock.

Please take a moment to click on those two links. If you like the concept — then roll a brother a bone and click the 5th star at the top of the page. If you would like to make a lens of your NSS Car & Team — there is a “Create A Lens” button at the bottom of the page to click to do so. Click that sucker and give it a try — what do you have to lose? You will find that it is too easy – and that you can earn some monthly change or donate it to a worthy charity.

Once you do a lens of your car, tell the rest of us the internet address at http://www.conservativeoldhippie.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1729 and we’ll come visit it, and rank it 5-stars (so it makes it up higher on the search list). If you have any questions, post them in that thread and we’ll get them answered for you.

This is a way to have a little fun, promote your car, promote the sport, and earn a little pocket change. You will notice that on those two Lens that I promote the NSS-Monster site with a listing of the posts made at www.nss-monster.com. That’s all done automatically with what is called a RSS Reed. Just click the RSS model for your lens and put the web address http://www.nss-monster.com and it will display and update automatically. You can also install a Cafe Press module on your lens — and help out a brother with listing the NSS Wall Calendars on your lens. It helps build context for your lens — and helps promote interest in NSS Racing. Again, click the two links, below to get an idea of a couple of NSS lens — and then create one for your car.

www.squidoo.com/nostalgiasuperstock

www.squidoo.com/bigredram

Also check the NSS-Monster site for the 2009 racing dates, and the 2009 NSS Racing rule revisions.

The Old Hippie

NSS Photos From NMCA Atlanta 2008

Below are photos of NSS cars that I and my daughter Dez took at the NMCA event in Atlanta. You can click the medium sized image to see the larger version. They are my copyrighted property, feel free to copy and use your car’s photo for your personal use.

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