Over the years we have been running the car, the entire team has become a great big family. We have shared our huge successes and battled through the lows together.
We recently heard of the passing of Bruce’s father and we are all feeling the loss.
As a project we extend our deepest condolences to Bruce and the rest of his family and friends.
Due to the nature of time ticking away the plans for our final runs of the year could not be changed, so we decided that despite this devestating news we would still try to run at El Mirage.
Ths biggest issue with this, is due to Bruce dealing with far more important things, the car preparation had only got as far as a diagnostic compression check and the discovery of a broken part of the exhaust system.
To compound the issue only Ian was able to fly out for this event, or so we thought!
Daniele Restelli our Italian friend (and World Record Holder) was very keen to come and witness the events at El Mirage. So, under the guise of ‘official photographer’ he joined Ian on this particular adventure. What he didn’t expect was to have to get his hands dirty!
Our original plan, based on the assumption that the car was ready to go, was to fly out on the Thursday, stay in San Diego and then head up to the workshop to collect the car for tech inspection in the afternoon.
As part of the ‘rallying around’ that follows a death in the family, where everyone is looking for ways to help those most directly affected, our team mate from Kansas, Dale Berry contacted Bruce and said he would meet us at the workshop and try and help in anyway possible.
At this point we had resigned ourselves to being spectators at this event, but if there was even a possibility of getting a run we would go for it.
With this in mind Ian and Daniele arrived at Pinon Hills late morning on Friday, they met up with Dale and surveyed the situation.
A mountain of work, coupled with the errant axle for the trailer which still remained to be fitted.
Out of desperation and sheer bloody mindedness we decided to give things a go, if we could get the car running and the axle on the trailer we would get down to the dry lake bed. If not we’d kick back share a beer and grab our cameras for a sightseeing trip.
After dividing our forces Ian set to repairing the car and marketing expert Daniele and carpenter Dale set to the trailer. A situation improved by the language barrier and Dale’s race engine impaired hearing. Plenty of opportunity for slapstick comedy.
Bruce had managed to weld up the exhaust so that was simply a refitting exercise, there was a set of spark plugs to go in and yet another failed battery to replace. We also had some interesting testing with the fuel pressure regulator which ended up with us refitting the original part.
We got the engine running, just before sunset, so things were suddenly looking up.
Having run out of daylight on the Friday, we rose early to load the car onto the trailer and get down to the lakebed before the compulsory drivers meeting.
Things were going surprisingly well and we managed to get everything together, alas by the time we had actually made it to the course, the drivers meeting had finished.
With this knowledge we set up our pit area and prepared the car for tech inspection. The hardest part of this was the packing of the parachute, which had been disassembled for cleaning after Bonneville, but not actually cleaned. This combined with the absence of anyone that actually knew the proper procedure for packing it, made for an interesting experience.
We headed off and managed to get through tech inspection and registered for the event, however because we had missed the drivers meeting we would not be allowed to run until Sunday.
Dissapointing, but compared to the expectation of not being able to run at all and the miracle of actually getting the car to the course we took it as a win, had a look around and spoke to a number of racers and organisers, then headed off to find a laundrette that would allow us to wash the salt out of the parachute.
Sunday morning, dawned dry and bright and we headed back tp the lake bed nice and early for the drivers meeting. This time everything was going well.
Post meeting there was a parachute untangling session, which involved at one point up to five people, but once untangled things went a lot easier than the packing session the day before.
With this successfully accomplished we headed for the starting line and lined up ready to run.
Fairly quickly we were inundated with old friends who recognised the car and came over for a chat and a number of new friends who came over for a chat and to try and work out what the car was.
Same old, same old. But still a pleasant experience.
Then after a brief training session Ian and his untested team went to work with final preparations. Daniele was in charge of seatbelts and door net, whilst Dale took charge of the fire extinguisher system and the final parachute lock.
Locked and loaded we were on the start line!
For reasons that were never fully explained, we were signalled to start almost straight away. We started the engine and probably not as warm as we would have preferred Ian left the line in the usual cloud of dust.
After the run, there was a worrying moment where Ian was being spoken to by an official. This is never a good sign!
For the first time the squidgy bit behind the steering wheel made an operational mistake! What an idiot.
The run was not as great as we had hoped, this was the end of the season and the centre of the course was very soft, resulting in a few sideways ‘wobbles’. The last quarter of a mile smoothed out and we managed 152 mph a 20+ mph improvement over our best run last year.
The run itself went as well as the course would allow, but once through the finish line Ian had complete brain fade and overran the end of the course. This is a huge no no, resulting in a reprimand, loss of the license upgrade and not able to run again for this meeting. What an idiot!
After many apologies and pleading with officials it was very soon obvious that nothing was going to change, so Ian apologised to the team and we ended up with an early bath!
Rich and Gina arrived just in time to see the run and then help us prepare and load the car on the trailer.
Considering we had accepted that we would not be able to run at all, to get one run in and a fast one at that was a huge success.
This year has been a terrible time for the older racing community and we feel it necessary to mention two gentlemen who passed away this year that have been friends of the project.
Firstly Jack Masson, who was our first technical contact right from the very early days of the project.
And, Jim Jensen a man of huge reputation and veteran starter of the SCTA.
Both will be sadly missed and the depth of knowledge and experience has left us a lot poorer.
