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[Land-speed] Worlds Fastest Sunbeam - The Rest of the Story, Day 3,

To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: [Land-speed] Worlds Fastest Sunbeam - The Rest of the Story, Day 3,
From: Larry Mayfield <drmayf@mayfco.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:13:13 -0700
  Thursday Part B

Ok, now in the right gear and headed down course. Kinda of feathering it 
for some idiotic reason, maybe the twitchy course from yesterday was 
stuck in my head... but by the 2 and a quarter mile trap I was only 
going 166 (I think that's what it was, I'll have to go out and get the 
timing slip and look). But, I continued to mash the pedal more. There 
was the previous 5500 rpm position, then 5600, then I mashed a LOT more 
and  by the start of the  4th mile I was truly hauling ass.  Maybe 5800 
going into the last timed mile. Now the car is drifting around, not 
crazily, but wandering, which is expected somewhat. But, the back end 
was breaking traction and the rear was moving a foot or so either way in 
addition to the drifting.  Now, folks, lemme tell you, that in this 
condition, of drift and see saw and me being a noob at this speed I was 
scared pretty much spit less!  I drove the last mile with one hand only 
on the steering wheel, just moving the car as needed to keep it between 
the course markers and the other hand on the chute release.  I really do 
not like "spins". So I was gonna be ready if it decided to cut loose. I 
kept the tach above 6000 for the end of the run and when the 5 mile 
marker went by,  I pulled the chute.  Now one time before at 175 or so I 
did that and the car went side ways, so this time I was braced to go 
side ways. Yikes! The chute hit and the car stopped squirming around and 
went absolutely dead straight. I could have removed my hands from the 
steering wheel. it was so good. Wow, what a relief.  As I drove that 
last mile, I tried to look at gauges but the one that I really watched 
was the oil pressure gauge. Heck it was 70 psig!  As I slowed down and 
turned off course it dawned on me that it took nearly a full mile to get 
the car stopped.  When I got it stopped and pointed in the go home 
direction, I pulled off gloves, released the harness, pulled the helmet 
and stood up. Got out and pulled the booties and jacket off and 
pants...it is hot with all that stuff on. Then Tom Shannon arrived with 
the water bottle and a quick look at the car. Was a wisp of smoke 
drifting out of the back of the hood opening. So he undid the dzus 
fasteners and looked Asked me if anything was wrong and I told him that 
dang it had never been ran that hard before. I expected a little smoke.  
Later back in the pit, Dale found the connectors to the HEGO welded 
together, lol... That was the source of the smoke wisp.  Seemed like a 
long wait for the push truck, but they are limited to about 50 mph and 
they had a long way to come, lol....  When they arrived, I removed the 
chute and off we went...at 20 mph.... Got to the timing shack and got my 
timing slip. Can you say YEEHAAA! 204.912 average for the last mile and 
a 210.7.xx exit speed! The car was still accelerating going out the back 
door!

Back at the pit, I am anxious to see how the engine data looked. But, 
the data logging had failed me once again.  I am not sure how it failed 
but I got the dataq 4 channels and the Innovate wide band which are 
recorded outside of the engine payload. But when something fails to 
respond to polling it usually stops data logging on everything.  It did 
not do this this time. I did show that the AFR was great, and that boost 
reached 11.8 or so, was set to approximately 10 as close as on can turn 
a knob, so that was fantastic!   Do I see 15 psig in the future?   
maybe.....

We settled down for a quiet period then put the cover on the car and 
took the awning down and went to the hotel to get ready for supper at 
the Rainbow Steakhouse. My opinion is that this is by far the best 
restaurant in town. Spendy but really good.



Friday and Sat next!

mayf
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