Maple Grove NSS Report

By: Dave Schultz ~ June 8, 2010

The Schultz family left on Wednesday, June 2nd at 9:30 AM and arrived at the track at 7PM Thursday. We spent the night in the staging area outside the track. We bought the Vitamin C (63 Savoy) in a single trailer — as the black 65 Coronet that Dallas was going to campaign still won't run — and we'd run out of time.

The gates opened at about 10AM, and we quickly got set up, established driver credentials, and tech'd the car in. At 3PM they opened the track to Time Trials. On my first and only TT pass — the car did  a 11.170 with the same 160 pounds that was bolted in from Bowling Green. The car was running the number at Bowling Green — but the air was horrible (about 4500') at Maple Grove. Both Doug Duell and Barry Camp moved up to C/FX as their cars couldn't do a B/FX number. Many of the cars bumped to one slower number. Worse yet for me was that the car was leaking water badly as I returned to the pits.

The water was coming from the left side of the block — which put a lump in my throat. Closer inspection found it was coming from the left center steel freeze plug of the 413's block. We drained the coolant and filled the plug with blue Permatex –as that's all we could find. We were hosed for any more TT and the first round of qualifying was to start at 7PM. We did unbolt 80 pounds from the left side (I'm a "Full-Figured" guy so we were heavy on the left side as it was).

When they called NMC (NSS Generally follows next) to the lanes, we filled the radiator with water — and it leaked just as bad. I made the quick decision that I needed to be counted as being there (after 3200 miles travel to/from the race) and that I should be counted Friday night — as there was a 40% chance of rain Saturday and Sunday. I drained the water, started the car cold and coasted to the top of the lanes. I waited towards the end of NSS to let the car be as cold as possible and then coasted downhill to the burnout box and started the car up there. I did a quick and light burnout, made an easy 11.09 pass, and it shut down at the top. Dallas towed me back to the pits in Barry Camp's (who is dogging me for $100 to use it) ATC. The car is an iron head car and I felt sure I didn't hurt anything as the car was stone cold when I did the burnout, and the temp gauge (albeit there was no water to measure) didn't exceed 200 degrees. The .09 had me 9 of 17 cars.

Kurt Neighbor had some emery paper, and "Mr. 4-Speed" Marty had some JB Weld. Dallas sanded the inside of the freeze plug and found a pinhole right at the edge of the sides and bottom, and pushed in some JB into it, then a thick smear in that area of the plug — before putting the car away for the night. Andy Warren and his father tried to find a rubber adjustable plug on the way to the motel — but all auto parts stores were closed.

In the morning we pushed the car out of the trailer and filled with water while crossing fingers. No Leak. Dallas took the car for its morning warm up and got the water to 170 before returning — no leaks. I borrowed a 6 pound cap from Fred Rager. Two hours later (all of which I spent in a lawn chair staring at the ground under the engine) we were called to the line for Q2 — still no leaks. I did a 11.05 — which had me in 8th of 17. No leaks when I returned to the pits from Q2. The 3rd Qualifying occurred at about 7PM Saturday — and I managed a 11.02, putting me 8th of 17.

On the above Qualifying, Kurt and Barry swapped — with Barry being the actual top qualifier on the sheet revised in the AM. Barry had his .003 first, but the computer initially put Kurt in the Top position for a faster MPH. MPH doesn't count in NSS — the first with the same low number does. In the First Round of Eliminations.

• I was paired with Scott Griffith for the first round, and he couldn't make the call — so I got the BYE. Still no leak!

• Doug Duell won over "Mr. 4-Speed" Marty

• Rager over the "Princess of Speed"

• Bates over DiMino Sr.

• Scotty Jiles over DiMino Jr.

• Kurt over his bud Skippy

• Poskovitch over Louis Popp (don't know him) in a red black Coronet

• Gary Beemer over Hoblick

• Barry Camp with the bye

In the second round:

• Schultz over Jiles

• Poskovitch over Duell

• Bates over Camp

• Rager over Beemer

• Neighbors had the Bye

In the third round, the winner of Bates and I would get a Bye to the final. I choked! For the entire event I had very good RTs (.070 the worse) — but I red lit (first time in this car, and first time in almost a year) after staging too deep. I had been staging deep because this car reacts slower than my 4-speed car — and I want to leave at the same time on the lights as I normally do. The "All Ford" Semis had Neighbor over Posovitch and Bates with the Bye.

Neighbors' Mercury took the win over Bate's 67 Failaine.

This race had a very light turnout for all classes. Despite 422 again scheduling an event the same time NMCA is in the area (many say this isn't an accident – but I'm so far away from the NE that it doesn't affect me) NSS and OC were the only two classes to come up with more than ten cars. Speculation in the pits reasoned that the track is too long of a haul for most; the forecasted weather (although we were only down for a couple of hours — a recent NMCA record) had many stay home; the combination of Bradenton going to Monday, Bowling Green cancelled (along with the forecast) have many throwing in the towel for 2010; or that the first four races mean nothing for the points chase — or a combination or two/more.

For NSS, Chicago is scheduled the same time as the Chrysler Classics — so you can expect even fewer Mopars. Then one of Schneider's races (Cordova?) is scheduled the same time as Milan — and last year that siphoned off quite a few Mopars. NSS is getting to be a Ford thing with NMCA lately. We (Mopar guys) were outnumbered again this race.

This race report is obviously through my eyes. I am more than willing to post any of the reports of others on a Nostalgia Drag Racing class. The best thing to do it to document the chain of events to the race on the appropriate forum by creating a new thread like I did in the NSS Forum: http://nostalgiadragracers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=nss&action=display&thread=188 that anyone can post to — and then post a summary after event has ended. I'll then cut and paste it to the Nostalgia Drag Racers site.