At The Track
While we have become accustomed to reporting 100-plus-degree temps and humidity readings that will make your pores scream uncle, this past May our shootout weather was downright enjoyable for Texas in late spring. The temperature at Ennis, Texas, checked in at 78 degrees at 10:30 a.m. and rose to 88 degrees by 5:00 p.m. Barometer readings a were at 29.92 hg, dropping to 29.85 hg; humidity was 89 percent, dropping to 74 percent in the same time frame with a 13-mph wind from the south.
Traction was deemed excellent by some and not so good by others, but the Motorplex crew put its time in to make it as sticky as possible all day. Some drivers grappled to find the delicate balance of stick and launch technique, which needed to be mastered to ensure low e.t.'s. The best part? Nobody seriously broke! Let's see how our competitors fared.
Mickey Wheeler
Mickey described the track conditions as "good to excellent." On his first run, his Judge bogged a bit on launch, and the same problem arose on the second pass. As luck would have it, on the third pass, the engine spit its alternator belt and shredded it. With a new belt in place, Mickey was ready to go later in the afternoon. His fourth pass matched the first at 13.09 for his best e.t. of the day. Ironically, his best mph, 107.16 on the second run, was paired with the slowest e.t. of his outing at 13.15 thanks to a bog off the line. Mickey related, "Traction got better later in the day," which is evidenced by the fact that his 60-ft times dropped from low 2s to high 1.9s when the first two and second two runs are compared.
Regarding the shootout as a whole, Mickey said he had a "great time" and it was a day of "good people, good weather, and good cars." The only thing that would improve it in his opinion is, "free beer."
Josh Hurt
"STICKY!" is how Josh Hurt described the track conditions for our shootout, saying that his T/A "hooked great and went straight." I guess he would know since he made low 10-second passes, engaged the nitrous on launch, and pulled the wheels on just about every one. Josh thought that he was having converter problems early on as he had to back out of it on the second and third runs--which were both nitrous passes--because he felt that the converter was too loose on the Third gear shift. On the fourth pass, the nitrous bottle was low, but the converter worked just fine, and a 10.36 at 127.42 was the result with wet and dry systems working. The next pass, with the nitrous bottles swapped, Josh described as "perfect," and it was his best run of the day--posting a 10.28 at 128.06 mph with both the 100hp dry and 100hp wet systems activated. After that pass, Josh was content to make "just motor" passes for the rest of the day and was still posting low 12s at 111 mph with a mostly stock engine (except for an airbox, headers, and exhaust). Hurt said, "The track prep was great, the food was good, it wasn't crowded, and I got plenty of passes--great event!"
Jonathan Burchmore
Jonathan and his '69 Bird were a model of consistency at the shootout. He set the car up for the first pass and then didn't change a thing except for fresh plugs on the third run and shift points. His first three runs were within .04 seconds of each other with a variance in speed of less than a half-mile per hour. This, despite launching 1,000 rpm lower on the second pass, was incidentally his best run of the day at 10.94 at 123.52.
His recollections of the available traction differed somewhat from our first two competitors. Jonathan says, "The traction was average. It was much better on Sunday [during the Southern Nationals], and it seemed to get worse as the day progressed. I spun slightly on most passes, but there was no major drama." He also said that he enjoyed, "the free food, meeting other racers, and having plenty of time for racing."
David Stuntz
David, like Jonathan, was having some problems with traction. He felt that the slicks lane was much better prepped than the street tire lane for his GTP, which was running drag radials. He also related that the street tire lane "got progressively worse, but track conditions remained good in the slicks lane," where Stuntz made his eighth and final pass (netting his best 60-ft of the day at 1.90). David noted that the GTP slipped on launch on the first pass; bogged up top on the second; and slipped on launch on the third, fourth, and seventh passes. He also said that the car ran rich the whole day, and he couldn't lean it out. (The next weekend the GTP ran 12.70-12.80s in the same weather with the mini AFC adjusted to lean the fuel mixture.)
Despite all this, Stuntz did seem to run pretty consistent 13.20s through the day. Traction and tuning woes aside, David said that he "had a blast and appreciated the openness" of the event.
Scott and Chad Templet
Chad drove and tuned his brother's '77 T/A and really got into the spirit of the event with regard to tuning. A glance at the Strip Tuning Log will reveal two jet changes, three tire pressure changes, two timing changes, a fuel change, multiple launch-rpm changes, and even some shift-point adjustments. How he kept it all straight, I don't know, but the net result was that Scott's Bird put down its best pass of the day with an 11.94 at 112.74 on its last run. Chad related, "The car hooked up well and did not pull to either side, and the track conditions were good." And he felt the overall event was "great."
Conclusion
So there's the racing action in a big nutshell. We had some quick Pontiacs on the strip and a raft of Pontiac people helping to make it all happen. As always, the Dallas Area Pontiac Association rose to the occasion with assistance where needed, from planning to grilling lunch. Fellow Pontiac racer, D.A.P.A. member and shootout alumnus David Dudley (who's '67 Firebird and '79 T/A are pictured on this page) came through once again--providing a fantastic lunch with D.A.P.A. for all of us from his company Riba Foods. There was enough food, including Arriba Salsa and many other Riba products, that you ran the risk of your Pontiac slowing down a tenth after lunch just from the amount that you ate. George Reaves was our D.A.P.A. chef of the day cookin' up burgers and other grilled delights for hungry participants.
Floyd Hand once again lobbied heavily to attract some of the quickest Pontiacs around to sign up for the shootout, and his efforts are appreciated. His own '66 Pontiac, also a shootout alumnus, is pictured on this page too. Randy Allen accepted the challenge to help organize the shootouts as he has done in years past, and he enlisted the aid of Rob Bender. This year Randy even polished his photography skills and shot a few of the photos that you will see in this installment.
Sewell Pontiac-GMC and two of its representatives, Jason Feuerberg and Saadallah El Jundi, get a big thank you for providing the HPP staff with a Montana minivan for the duration of the Southern Nationals and the shootout.Tune in next month when we present Part II of the Lone Star Edition of High Performance Pontiac's Pavement Pounders Shootout.