Dave Schultz – August 5, 2013
The Dave Duell Classic is the biggest and bestist of all NSS Races — or at least that’s my opinion. Dave Duell organized and administered to this race for many years when it ran during the Monster Mopar Weekend in St. Louis. In 2005, Dave passed away and his son Doug took over the administering of it. In 2006 we had the first Dave Duell Classic. When Gateway closed its track three years ago, The Classic found a new home with the NMCA during it’s Bowling Green Race. I try to help where I can with creating and running the DaveDuellClassic.com web site.
We loaded up on Tuesday and Dallas took the rig to get washed so we could leave in the morning. On the way back he called to say that there was a large air leak coming from the dash. After we tore the dash out (a huge jigsaw puzzle) – we found the culprit to be a air sensor switch — only available at Freightliner.
Freightliner is about 55 miles away, so I fought 3 hours of Houston evening rush-hour traffic, I was back to the shop and had the Coronado back together by late night, so we could still leave in the morning.
We (four of us with my wife and youngest daughter PLUS 4 dogs!) left the shop at 9AM and arrived at our usual overnight stopping point in Jackson, TN at about 11PM. After an early start Thursday morning we were at the track at noon. I had to bring a 60 Plymouth fender for someone who was meeting me at the track — and he was there waiting on us — so we dealt with taking that to him before setting up the pits.
Also waiting for us was another trailer flat. I buy a new set of Load Rated G Goodyears every year for about two grand, but still have more than my share of the tires loosing their tread cap. This year I tried a set of Gladiators — but two have so far developed bubbles. This bubble was on the inside and we didn’t see it until it popped. It looks like I need to spring $5000 for a set of seven 17.5″ HD wheels and H-Rated tires.
For some reason, the NMCA forgot to send in their people to Kentucky for establishing credentials or tech in cars on Thursday — for the first time in the six years I’ve raced with them. I kinda thought that’s what the extra $45 a person they bend you over for on Thursday was suppose to cover. So after setting up the pits there was nothing to do, but Friday we had extremely long lines for both Credentials and having the car teched in, which limited the Time Trials of many people waitng in the lines. It could have been worse (IE: Even Slower) as although NSS had 57 cars — every other class was smaller than I’ve ever seen. Even though the weather was great — I’ve never seen such a small turnout at a Bowling Green race. Money is tight, diesel and race fuel is more expensive — and I guess fewer people are able to go racing. I know my personal out of pocket is at an all time high since Bowling Green’s 900 miles in my closest race.
The “Newly Freshened” engine in my Wagon blew up in qualifying at the last two NMCA races — the last time destroying the block and crank. So my backup car “Vitamin C” was pressed into action. Dallas has two years on his motor without issue (knock on wood — so I bought all of the parts and pieces to the people that built his engine to see what it will cost to get an engine like his, which is a clone of Doug Duell’s.
Speaking of Doug, he won all three of the first NMCA races (and runnered up in this one) so the rest of this year is relegated to getting the best position we can, and tweaking the cars, as the Championship is in the Bag for Doug.
I also have a new engine in the Vitamin C, but I had a little bit of consistency issues with the car this weekend. It was all over the map, and the weather station couldn’t accurately predict what I’d run based on my previous run. I’m not sure if it is the engine of maybe the converter — but I’ll get it ironed out before the next race in Norwalk — which is at the end of this month. Dallas’ car was dead nuts on all weekend — even though we made a rear shock change from QA1 to AFCO.
Saturday we had a Class race — with Dallas in FX and I in NSS/C running in the two largest classes. I turned on the Stupid bulb on in the second round. Dallas however won the FX class and the $1000 for the second year in a Row.
One of the other benefits of the Dave Duell Classic is a Driver’s Dinner — with a lot of sponsors giving some pretty good swag for the Driver’s Only raffle. Sure wish I would have won the convertor. Need to find a good convertor sponsor!
Sunday I had Duell on the tree in the second round by a pretty good margin, but took too much stripe when the car out of no where ran a tenth faster than the computer said it would. Dallas went four rounds, but after a .004 light in second round and .008 in the third round — he turned on the stupid bulb against Duell in the fourth – having to settle for the semi-final cash. Duell went to the finals and he too red lit. Actually there were a heck of a lot of red lights all weekend long — and the ratio of red lights in the right lane seemed like it was 5:1. Weird.
That’s my story — and I’m sticking to it!
