Thursday Report
Mission Raceway Test 'n' Tune Day
Despite the very mediocre weather forecasts for the week, today has dawned bright and sunny in the city, and hopefully, over Mission Raceway as well. There's still a small possibility of showers today, while tomorrow's outlook is decidely damper, with a high probability of precipitation all day. Bummer! Saturday's outlook is better, with a much lower chance of rain and Sunday might see some sun to round out the weekend. All in all, it looks like a typical Mission race weekend shaping up. Don't lose the umbrella, make sure the windshield wipers are working and pack some sunscreen. In other words: not much chance of snow, but anything else could be on the menu.
Once we've done a little housekeeping around here, packed up the camera bag, dug out the old media pass from wherever it's been hiding for the last few years and point "Big Red" in the direction of the track. Hope it can still remember the way there. Next report will be this evening. Hopefully with a few pics and some good gossip from the early arrivals at the track. Until then....
7:30 pm update
Despite the weather turning threatening, Thursday's test 'n' tune at Mission Raceway went off with nary a hitch. The track had some really biting teeth, the air was good and the mood was upbeat as many racers started the process of knocking the off-season rust off their combinations and seeing what the 2010 season held in store. But for every good pass, there were two or three aborted or early shutoff efforts. Here's most of the numbers from this afternoon.
Troy Sitko (licensing pass) TA/FC - 6.59 - 157.78 shutoff before 1000 ft. mark
"Advanced Powder Coating #6775 T/Dragster - 6.26 - 219.24
John Evanchuk TA/FC - 5.96 - 246.23 with a pedal job
Brian Hough TA/FC - 5.64 - 254.74 with a soft-ish leave
Rick DiStefano AA/PM - 11.59 - 75.36 shutoff at 100 ft.
Greg Sereda T/AD - 6.21 - 138.93 shutoff very early with chutes out
Ashley Bart T/AD - 10.13 - 78.98 shutoff at 300 ft
With all the fast cars having run, it was time to take a wander through the pits and do an inventory on the attendees and catch up with some old and some new friends. First stop was the Sitko pits where it was learned that Troy (younger brother of regular driver Nathan) Sitko was driving today. The plan is to make another pass later in the afternoon. Asking about their plans for the season elicited the comment that the patriarch of the family, long-time fuel racer, George Sitko, is builing a nitro motor for a possible Nostalgia Nitro flopper effort in 2011. Interesting!
Another nitro flopper was spotted further down the pit lane, with Tim Nemeth's brand-new '70 Mustang being assembled for what would appear to be some exhibition passes this weekend. It looks good and if he's got a "store-bought" tuneup in the car, should run well right out of the box. While looking over the car, I noticed a steady stream of racers heading for the staging lanes so I'm headed back to the starting line for the second and final test session for the alky cars.
Don St. Arnaud - no reverse and drove it through after the burnout
unidentified nitro harley - 6.49 - 205.90
another unidentified nitro harley - 12.35 - 100.45 - near the wall all the way down
Mike Austin (Federlin car) T/AD - 5.72 - 184.42 - shook hard in low, shutoff at 900 ft.
John Evanchuk TA/FC - 20.88 - 30.97 - went 50 ft. and shutoff
Troy Sitko TA/FC - 6.30 - 183.37 - another early shutoff
Greg Sereda T/AD - 5.67 - 212.01 - career best e.t. and shutoff at 1000 ft.
And that's all she wrote for the day. The weather held up, despite threatening to start raining for the last hour, and the forecast is for the storm to hit this evening and hang around for Friday and on into Saturday morning. But the weatherman has been wrong so many times that it's going to be a look and see day tomorrow. Be ready for anything.
In the meantime, I'll get busy going over the few photos that I managed to shoot today and get at least a few of them posted tonight, along with a few more notes, and other observations. While you're waiting, maybe you'd like to check out Dean Murdoch's really excellent event preview that was published on the front page of the local Mission City Record today. Good work, Dean. And if you want to see some really good motorsport photography, click on over to Paul Grant's 330 Images website.