Cheers!

John (Hoosier Hurricane) blew another head gasket.  It has been replaced and he got in one more run at the end of the day.

Gary (speedpro56) had a rocker screw break.  Ted came to the rescue with some spare screws and rocker arms.  Before the end of the day, he broke into the high 12s, with a personal best.

Jerry Christensen showed up late in the day with a new dragster.  Hopefully we'll see it run tomorrow.

Impressions of  Columbus 2010 as of Saturday @ 7:30 Sat Evening

When I had to leave the final two rounds of the Y block shootout had yet to be run. There were 3 cars in the running;  Yahaa Bill’s turbocharged ’60 Pickup,  Harry Hutton’s ’60 Merc and Greg (?)’s  Y block powered ’80 Pinto.  I believe that Harry and Bill had both had bye runs so they would have to run each other and Greg would get the bye into the final.   Someone please update!

Besides Greg’s Pinto there were several other new cars, a sweet Red Coupe which was in the pits on Friday and in the show field Saturday, Bill from Maine with his yellow ’55 2 door HT, and Jerry C’s new creation.

Most of the usual bunch were there, Dave Fuzner, Royce Brechler, Church Bros with the red '55 only, Dennis Leeking, Ted Eaton, Wally Kerstein.  After an absence of several years and a harrowing trip from Texas Pat Fleischman was there.  All together there were about 20 cars in the pits. 

Ted brought one of the Mummert aluminum heads that was a pleasure to look at.  It solves many of the problems with porting the iron heads that it is no wonder that they make so much power.  He also had mark 1 Mummert manifold without the heat under the carb and a much modified one with an aluminum spacer and much plenum modification. He was showing a printout of the dyno run for the manifold and heads that was very impressive.  He got over 1.4 hp /cubic inch out of a 375 CID Y.

 People without cars there were Glenn Henderson, Gordon Payne, Bill Parham, Rich Hudson and me.  We all sware we will have cars there next year.

There was some breakage,  John Fistritzer blew a head gasket on Friday replaced it in the pits and blew it again in the first run Saturaday.  After the rocker arm problem, Gary Burnette had severe overheating after earlier success with his bird and he suspected head gasket problems as well.  Gary may have the first set of aluminum heads to run in a car.  Vince Corretti twisted off the output shaft of the top loader in his ’55 Bird. 

The weather was cool to cold for a change

Doug T

 Greg's Pinto, This car runs 11.40's and was bought from E bay without engine.  Greg is a pretty serious racer with very good reaction times.  He is a friend of Wally K.s from Illinois.

 I never did meet the owner but the engine is almost identical to the first hot one I had in my Bird which I sold in the mid '80's in Maryland.

 Jerry C's new car with Pat Fleischman in the background. Jerry was having some teething troubles with coolant and I didn't see a real good run before I left.

 First Round of the Shootout, Ted Eaton, I can not remember the owner's name of the very nice and quick rancharo, Wally and Harry

The Pinto won Sunday also.  First double Y shoohout winner.  Sorry I did not get to spend some time talkinig with you, seems one or the other of us were a;waus engaged in something else going on.

John, sounds like a lot of the regulars encountered problems this year, including your headgaskets, did you notice if there was a car running the new aluminum heads and if so how did it go?? I know there will be more details filtering through once everyone settles back down, mctim, myself and the other armchair racers are eager to catch up on the event. thank you, regards bill

Thanks for the update on the heads.  I'm sorry to hear about your block, but I think we all breathed a sigh of relief that it is not related to the heads.

My typing on my last post was terrible.  Guess I'll have to go back to high school to Mr. Jordan's typing class for rehab.

Have the head off the Hurricane, but haven't found a definitive answer to the problem.  This gasket is blown as severly as the one of 3 weeks ago.  I was hoping to find a problem with the top deck of the block, but even with a dial indicator I can't find any warpage, block or head.  I think the next step will be to determine if the centerline of the cylinder has been moved upward.

speedpro56 (9/6/2010)

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The aluminum heads were stronger from one end to the other. wasn't a head gasket that blew but looks like a small split in my #2 cylinder wall. Will pull the driver side head off and see what it's like to be sure I'm not missing something. With the #2 cylinder not looking good I'm not feeling to good either but will take it as it comes and make it stronger the next time. The Mummert heads at this time seem to be the way to go, I felt NO POWER loss at the bottom end at all but more power, and it kept making great power at the top end at 6200 rpms as well.

Gary, thats a great report on the heads, looks like we,ll have to regear the car for trackwork to use up that spare topend power? at least you,ll chuckle when lifting the head off at how much lighter and easier on the back it is,.

John, does anyone know who owns the pinto, etc.

I'm terrible at remembering names, his first name is Greg, from the Chicago area, he's a friend of Wally Kerstein.  Wally claims he brought him as a "ringer" to beat Harry Hutten.  Looks lide the ringer rang all our bells-----TWICE!

Greg Dietrich is the Pinto owners name.  He broke a couple of pushrods and damaged a rocker arm during the early Sunday time trial which involved pulling the intake and valley cover.  After a serious thrash in repairing the damage, He was back up to speed in time for the call for eliminations.

I’ve already sent a picture of the Pinto to Jim (site administrator) and you can look for that to be on the home page of the site later tonight.  Special thanks to all who gave me their camera pictures as I’ll turn them over to Jim who will post them in galleries for all to view in the near future.

Jeery's new dragster was a blast to see although he had some tranny fluid leaking issues, why is hard to understand since it was so meticulously prepared. he did touch it off at the end of the strip and pulled a 123mph, I can't wait to see what it will do when he can open it up the length of the track, unfortunately he is just in the testing stages at the moment.

My brother had a great time also so I will anounce it here since he doesn't visit the computer and I think he will be back since he and my other older brother are the ones that had the Y's in the 60's when I was just a pup, wonder how I got hooked? now I am hooking them back in. Its a dreadful disease.

Anyone good with Photoshop?