PINKS update============
 

Just spoke with Jack . All qualifying is over and they are down to 2 groups. There will be either an 11.90 or 9.90 class, ANNNNND Michael has been selected to the 9.90 class. Let's keep our fingers crossed they pick the 9.90's. After the first qualifying run this morning where Michael ran a 9.91 @ 133mph, the ET/mph boards were turned off so the racers could not see how there pass turned out. Jack said he had lowered Michaels boost a bit and took out a little timing to keep things around an 10.00, but it appears the car still ran into the 9's as is evident by Michael being pick with the top 16 9.90 cars. This is cool guys! Michael could not only show everyone how well TR's wil run, but he has a 50/50 shot @ running for $10,000. Let's not forget the Cotton team, and RPE for building this bad boy.:D

Pinks
 

It was nice to meet you michael at the show yesterday and the rest of the crew.To make it to the sweet 16 was quite a performance.You made all us Turbo Buick racer proud.Good job.

Tony
1983 T-Type Riviera
231 carbed turbo
NHRA National Record Holder

Thanks so much! It was also very nice to meet you also. To answer your question yesterday....I had plenty of wick left!;):D
I pm'd you.

I was lookin around and found a video of Mike's first qualifying run at Pinks. Here it is....http://youtube.com/watch?v=_HDYZJ1DBH8

OMG! Now looking at my pass, Jack, you were right I was all over the place! I did do a 9.91 in a half mile!!!!:D:D:D

I am sorry guys I haven't posted anything yet, it's been crazy at work. I am working on it tho!:)

Congrats on the 9's! Can't wait to hear the story.

The action was fast and furious down there. We actually had 2 customers there, one was a 9 second capable 109 stock block car that we had just finished building, but had yet to get much track time to tune in. The other was a new customer we had sold parts to that we were tuning in at the shop. So both cars were pretty unknown to us as to where they would run. We had hoped to run the 9 second, (Mike's) car around 10.0 since he didn't have a license or net yet. We did install a cage and had it certified though. The other was a total street car, (Harold Z's) with no cage, had to try and keep it at 11.50. Needless to say, their fiirst qualifying runs were 9.91 and 11.37..... WOOPS... tried to turn them down for the 2nd run but they still went too fast.. :eek!: Mike's 9.90's got him picked for the Sweet 16.. so the sweating began, as it turned out Etown safety tech was not happy with him in the staging lanes as they tech the cars for a 3rd time, this time after the cars were chosen and getting outfitted with cameras and sound equipment.. long story short, Mike ran 1st round against a newer trans am and pretty much pulled away in 1st before having trouble getting into 2nd gear... the trans am came around him and Mike was unable to run him down after banging off the rev limiter for several seconds.. he had a great wheels up launch with plenty left in the tank.. Mikes car has an RPE built 109 motor with ported Champion heads and a new Turbonetics GTK72-BB turbo, on 17-18lbs of boost he ran 9.91@133mph.. Me thinks he has a legitimate chance of running some serios numbers once we finish tuning and work his 60 fts down into the 1.30's... oh ya.. and turn up the boost about 10lbs...

To sum it up we had a fabulous weekend and thouroughly enjoyed the Pinks show.. one more tidbit, we left the track around 10:30 saturday nite and went to Red Lobster for some dinner and relaxation... who do you think walked in 10 minutes behind us.... Rich Christianson.... the Pinks host... it was cool, we spoke for a few minutes and enjoyed the rest of our meal while rehashing the weekend and how fortunate we were to have had the opportunity to particpate... and represent the Buick Community.

A big congrats to Mike and Harold for running so well....

Well the cats out of the bag, I was not prepared to run in the 9's. I was having boost issue's. I could not get over 17 pounds of boost no matter how much I was turning the boost up on the electronic boost controller. We finally fixed the problem that friday at the track. That 9.91 was only the 6th clean pass that I had on the car since we had gotten it back from Cotton's. It was just amazing! I can't thank Jack, Brian and Adam enough for all the hard work they put into this build for me. Jack was there with me by my side throughout the entire 2 days. Without his help we could never have done it! The car has a ton of potential left, Jack hasn't even really even touched the XFI much. Actually the last pass we took a pound of boost away and he took 2 degrees of timing out and the car launched harder then it ever did before and even if that "shifter malfunction" didn't happen I think I would have been disqualified for running to fast. It's crazy, it's not like we were even trying to sandbag or anything. We had just gotten the car together, we really had no idea that it was going to run that well!

All Out
 

Congrats Mike, Harold and Team Cotton. I wish I could have been there to see you all run. And just to say Hi to everyone. Maybe I'll have to catch up some time in the future.

Hey Boss, thanks, sorry I didn't respond yet to your email. I just been crazy here. We did some work on the suspension a few weeks ago..... pecking away at it.. I'll talk to you soon..