[JCotton1]

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....