Friday 13th at the Drag Strip on ArmDrop Live

I decided to make this into a new thread of it's own to make it easier to find so some of you may have already read this.

Well, we had our ArmDrop event with Rich Christensen yesterday! Guess I should have known better than to race on Friday 13th! Didn't turn out too bad though. I did pop an axle on my 1st pass of the day...no big deal. I ran to the house and picked up a spare axle. Next, all I had to do was get the broken piece out of the mini-spool. Small 2" piece of spline stayed in. Well, no magnet was strong enough to pull it out so I pulled the other axle out in hopes of pushing it through. That proved to be difficult also because of the pin going through the center of the spool. I finally found something small enough to squeeze by the pin. No problem, the axle piece pushed out of the spool and my buddy was on the other side with a flash light. I heard him say "I see it moving....uhhh, where did it go???" I thought, Oh Crap! Sure enough, I looked through the other side with my flashlight and it was clear as a bell all the way through, with the exception of the pin. No axle piece in site. It fell down into the housing. My buddy said "well, might as well load it up." I said what are you talking about fool? It's only 10:30 a.m. I gotta pull the pumpkin and get that baby out. So we gathered the necessary materials and I got busy. Just as I was getting it back together they called group 3 out for their second qualifying run. They all seemed surprised to see me back after limping down the track on the 1st pass. Anyway, I figured I'd launch with a few less r's this time...didn't want to break anything else (3500 instead of 4000). That track was some kinda sticky! I matched my best time I got there a few months ago when I first started running the car there...a 6.97! That even surprised me! I was just hoping to get in the 7.0 range. A couple hours later I was able to make another qualifying pass and squeezed out a 7.03. To make a long story short they cut everyone running above 7.0 and they used my fastest time which put me in the finals. They chose 4 groups, two 32 field groups and two 16 field groups. I was in the slowest group which was a 16 group. Man, I was excited...till I pulled around to the staging lanes and didn't see the 1st car without a roll cage and slicks and decals plastered all over their cars. Not good. Everybody seemed to be looking at me as to why I was there. Oh well, at least I'm having fun. I had watched the car I was paired with make a pass earlier and he ran a 6.79. I found out that the group I was in was scattered pretty wide, 6.70-7.00. I was really hoping for something like a 7.0-7.25 but that didn't happen.
I had already been studying a few of the guys leaving off of Rich's armdrop and felt I was as ready as I'd ever be. Anyway, I knew I had to get more out of the Mav than I had ever got before and that's what killed me. I figured I'd break another axle launching at 4000 again but I decided to run the crap out of it. The axle held up! The race car got a very slight jump on me. It was going great...till I missed 3rd gear trying to speed shift. The sad thing about it was I was running pretty close with this guy before that. Not saying I would have won but could have made it more exciting to been there all the way.
Over all it was a great day at the track! Was suppose to be a two-day event but was shortened to one day due to the rain coming in Saturday...which did come and is still raining, so it was a good thing. Wish they were doing it again next weekend. I'd be right back up there. Guess I'll be taking a racing break for a while though...gotta lots of shows and cruises coming up. I'll probably ease back out to the track once every few weeks just to have a little more excitement...as long as I can stand it!

Here's a pic of the trophy I brought home!


And here's a pic one of the photographers took of me leaving the line. My axle broke on this pass. I felt it pop before I got out of 1st gear. I was surprised it didn't snap on the line.

 

Cool deal! Sounds like it was a real good time (besides the breakage). What kind of axles you running anyway?

 

HOLY CR@P! looking at your parked pic vs your launch pic, your getting some awesome launch traction. sorry to hear the axles are letting you down though...

 

Just stock so I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. Been wanting to go with some Mosers but I have two gear setups (3.89 & 4.30) and both of them have 28 spline mini-spools. If I'm going to buy axles I think I wanna at least change everything over to 31 so I'm going to need to change spools and all. I'll also go to full spools. I sheared a pin on my 3.89 setup a few months ago.

 

Man, thats pretty good though that the stockers made it that far. I got 31 spline mosers in my car, never had any problems: but honestly if i had know stock axles were that strong i might not have even put those in. Love the pic btw.

 

Sounds like fun. Thanks for the pictures.

 

NIce pic. ray, I know they're 500 bucks but a detroit locker might be a little kinder on those axles. I,m not a spool lover on roadcars, jus hate to see you go on your roof is all. good luck.

 

Can you believe they ran a freakin jet-car on a short 8th mile track??? I think it went 3.52 seconds. I didn't think they could stop it that quick.
[ame="http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l50/bentwheel43/?action=view&current=SMOV0023-7.flv"]SMOV0023-7.flv video by bentwheel43 - Photobucket[/ame]

 

i would strongly sugest not to get mosers. ive seen them twist just as easly as stock axles. a specific example is a 9" i put in a mustang. it had toms 35 spline axles. the customer ran a whole season on them and they had no twist in them. he had a chassie shop narrow the diff just an inch and they put moser axles in and he ran 4 runs in one weekend on them, came to us for a ratio change and we found that they were already twisting and could have snaped really soon. we have quite a few of twisted axle exhamples of moser around the shop. i hight recomend going with stranges s/s or s/t axles or mark williams masterline axles. you can get toms axles for a 65 mustang and trim them a little to maverick length if you want.

 

Somebody just posted a video of my armdrop run. It's not a great vid but better than nothing I suppose.
[ame="http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l50/bentwheel43/?action=view&current=SMOV0026-7.flv"]SMOV0026-7.flv video by bentwheel43 - Photobucket[/ame]

 

Cool Ray, thanks for posting.

 

Sounds like you had a good time Ray. I've got the Moser 33 spline axles and full spool on mine and I run high 11's, low 12's. Had them for about 7 years now with no problems. Strictly a track car so not going around corners a lot. When I bought them Moser did not warranty the 31 spline axles, but had a 10 year warranty on the 33's, for the same price, so that's what I went with.

 

Thanks guys, I'll certainly keep all that in mind when the time comes.

 

I think Moser now warranties all their axles for 10 years. BTW at least you got to make the run. I went red yesterday in the first round by .002.

 

Ouch!!!!!!