Black Pig Too race report two

Fresh off the email from my big brother Brock:

Friday's dawn arrived with howling winds and driving rain and by midday we had decided that the weekend was a washout as far as racing was concerned, however, having taken the day off I resealed the valley gaskets, made a carb spacer, jetted up our bigger carb and fitted that and washed the last of the oil off the cowl and everywhere else it had got, then went home. By mid afternoon we were getting calls and text's asking where we were, windy but dry with an improving forecast, sometime after five a voice from the bath, ( that's where the Boss seems to live when not doing stuff), called out "why don't we just go?" so we did. After loading the car and all the kit, the shopping, and no small amount of beer we had a leisurely drive up, after stopping for fuel for the car, genny and truck and an early dinner we arrived sometime about eleven PM to find our favourite Hot Rod Haulier had stayed up and out of the bar in order to help pit us and unload, what a nice man. After saying some hello's and opening a beer, not necessarily in that order, we hastily retired to the truck to watch the howling gales and driving rain outside.

Saturday, surprisingly, was really rather pleasant, a bit cloudy at times but quite a nice day. We warmed the car up and tinkered with some bits that probably didn't need to be touched and I finally got organised and down to the line about two'ish, a soft launch and a high gear pass to check it all out netted a 10.46 @ 134, quite encouraging, nothing fell off, nothing escaped from the firebox that wasn't meant to, all good. A couple of hours to look it over and let it cool down a bit and we went out again. Low gear engaged this time, stamp the throttle on the second amber and the whole thing bogged down, actually had me pressing the other pedal to slip the clutch, if only we had one , bloody autos. By now the damm thing had had about 1.114 seconds to think about it and decided to give it a go, unfortunately it got out of the hole with a huge lurch to one side, first time I have ever had to lift to straighten it up, having got it pointing vaguely down track I let it run. 9.6 @145.43, Club records show this as our fastest pass to date and all with some deeply unimpressive short track figures, not great but much, much better. We retired for the day to do some thinking, look at some more beer, and spot satellites in perfectly clear skies. There was also tractor pulling taking place and, I'm told, much merriment until the small hours.

Sunday, The Club was in competition, we were entered but not really interested, we had a problem with the launch that I wanted to work on, after a look at the plugs we had down jetted the mains and with assistance from the pseudo Welsh one adjusted the idle circuits on the carb, down at the line, again it fell on it's face for a second and a bit then took off in some totally random direction before running hard in the second half of the track, another 9.6 @ a slightly slower 143 mph, still not right. The second run of the day and it stalled after the burnout and refused to restart, pushed back, oh the ignominy. We now know enough to quit whilst only marginally behind and returned to the pits to stow the car and gear. We stayed long enough to support The Clubs prize giving and left the track as the rain started again.

On the face of it maybe not the best of weekends but we came away quite upbeat about it all, a good decision to go and a couple of things learned, whilst sat in the car cranking it on the start line I was reminded of a problem we had a couple of years ago ( ! ) that I never fully addressed and a brief email to MSD technical dept confirmed our thoughts, so some new kit on order and a few bits too and we'll be back in a week and a bit for the Nostalgia's hopefully in good shape to try again, it's a cracking meet and you should be there, rumour has it that a certain long car might well venture out of Wales for it's first time at the track, bring cake, beer and camera, see you there

-Steve

Photo of Black Pig Two, Lesley, (the Boss), & Steve, taken at the Nostalgia Nationals, Shakespeare County Raceway, Stratford on Avon, 2010.