Read about our latest developments with our NHRA Competition Eliminator Ford Thunderbird... Meet our team...
CW Racing...the lastest newsEvery part is custom designed for your application, and our professional staff knows what parts it takes to create a winning combination.
See our products...Drag Racing with the HemiFord.com Team
Read about the latest developments with our Competition Eliminator 1996 Ford Thunderbird. Learn more about the car, the crew, our partners, and our performance at the track. See what we do...
Medford, OR. - LODRS Division 6
Sept 24, 2010 – Ever noticed how quick people are to give you advise when you're at the track? As a rule, when I receive such advise I just sort of mentally filter it out unless it is coming from a trusted source. And sometimes even that isn't good enough. When we were in Fontana, I received some advise regarding my four-link setup from one of those trusted sources. Against my better judgment, I took the advise and moved my four-link bars all around. Now I had been tuning (and sometimes de-tuning) the rear suspension for the last three races. I had the car going pretty straight at Seattle, but the car just wasn't aggressive enough in the first 330'. It just wouldn't get up on the tire and go. The best 60' time I could manage at Seattle was 1.068 and when the clutch would lock up it wanted to spin the tires. I had the car set to leave the starting line at 5800rpm... at least 1000rpm below it's peak torque number. We just couldn't get aggressive with the car or we'd spin the tires. So for the next race, I decided I would go back to my base-line setup which the car had in it back when it was running pro-stock. This was a more aggressive setup with the instant center moved back and a narrower relationship between the upper and lower bars.
The track at Medford was pretty lose on Saturday and we only had the one day for qualifying. The track operators and the NHRA crew worked on the track the whole day trying to make it better. We made three qualifying passes and the best I could do was 7.23 on our first pass of the day and I had to lift way early because the car had drifted out of the groove. For the first round of eliminations on Sunday, Tony and I decided to take some more weight out of the clutch to see if we could get it to at least make a full pass. The NHRA and the track crew had applied a drum of VHT to the track before eliminations Sunday morning and they sprayed it again just before Comp ran. Well, that seemed to do the trick. I was able to make a full pass and I made my first 6 second pass. The car went 6.98 @ 197mph... a personal best for me. Unfortunately I went red again.
Well, that was the last race of the year. Now it's time to update the car. We've got some changes to make in the engine, and I'm going to try to get some weight out of the car. We've been running the car 250 lbs over weight!!! Unfortunately for me, the cheapest way to lighten up is for me to quit eating so much. Sometimes I wish my wife didn't cook so well... but not really.
Seattle, WA. - LODRS Division 6
Aug 20, 2010 - After the Woodburn race, I reviewed the video's we had taken and noticed the car was squatting heavily on the right side when it left the starting line. Something wasn't right. This chassis just doesn't do that. When we were at Fontana, we had some big discussions about the four link setup and prior to the Woodburn race I made a change to it. Now I thought I was being very thoughtful and careful when moving the bars, but apparently I was neither thoughtful or careful enough. I had actually misplaced the lower right front end of the four link bar giving the right side of the car a super soft setup. As a result, the car wanted to squat terribly at launch not to mention the 60' times were pretty weak (around 1.08). When I saw what I had done, I couldn't believe it. I guess I was a lot rustier than I thought I was. I was amazed that the car drove as good as it did. Needless to say I fixed it. Off to Pacific Raceways in Seattle.
Tony and I pulled into Pacific Raceways around noon Thursday to get setup for the weekend. We were going to be short handed this weekend. Scott was supposed to be there Friday, but he had missed his flight and wasn't able to get another until Saturday. My brother Steve was arriving Friday evening, so we would have him for Saturday. But Friday qualifying was up to Tony and I. Fortunately, I recruited our friends, Super Comp racers Bob & Marsha Miller to come help at the starting line. They did a great job... many thanks to them.
Fixing the four link made a big improvement to the way the car handled ( I guess that was to be expected). Most of all, the car left nice and flat again. But it still seemed to be stuck in that 1.08 60 ' zone and I was sure it should have been quicker than that. We made three qualifying runs and the best we could do was a 7.11 which put us at 16 in a 16 car field. The track owners decided that we would have to get the entire race in on Saturday because the weather forecast was calling for rain on Sunday. The first round of Comp was to run around 5pm. I had to run Terry Spargo and his Sonny Leonard powered A/AP in round one and he had me covered by over one half of a second. This should have been an easy win for him. But Terry lifted early (around 800 – 900 feet out) to try to save his index and I was able to run him down and pass him just before the stripe. My first round win in comp. I apologized to Tony because it meant we still had work to do... no pizza and beer yet! We had the car serviced and ready to make the next run in less than 50 minutes. But I wouldn't be so lucky in the next round. I went red.
Over all, it was another good weekend. We made more progress with the chassis and the clutch. We didn't hurt anything (other than an intake rocker that broke while we were warming the engine in the pits). But there was still work to be done. The car just wasn't aggressive enough at the starting line. Time to rethink the four link setup again.
Woodburn, Or. - LODRS Division 6
June 24, 2010 - We pulled into Woodburn early Thursday morning to get setup for our first divisional race. Thursday is a test and tune day for those racers who want to make passes prior to Friday's start of qualifying. Initially I hadn't planned on making a pass on T&T day, but Scott & Tony convinced me I should. Admittedly I was a little nervous about getting behind the wheel after the Fontana outing. It's not all that fun driving a 1500hp car that won't go straight. But I did want to see if the change to the anti-roll bar made any difference...and it did. I pulled through the water box in the right lane thinking to myself “I wonder which way it's going to go”. I set the line-lock, pulled her into 4th gear and dropped the clutch. Now into fifth gear and release the brake. Low and behold, she went straight; well straight enough to control it anyway. So I backed up and staged the car, three came down and I left hard... RIGHT DOWN THE PIPE!!! Managed to run 7.13, which is not a great pass, but it was a big step forward for us.
Through out the weekend we made 5 passes; 1 test, 3 qualifying, and 1 elimination. My best time was 7.109 which was .001 seconds under the national index for an A/A and good enough for the # 12 spot in a 16 car field. Even though I went red in the first round of eliminations, my team and I were pretty happy about the progress we made this weekend. It takes a tremendous amount of work to get one of these cars to go down the track. The chassis setup still wasn't right, but it was a heck of a lot better than it was in Fontana. We got some good clutch data, videos, and photographs that would help us get the car ready for the Seattle Divisional race coming up next.
I want to thank Carl Baker for helping us with our clutch setup. I had sent him screen shots of the clutch graphs from our Friday runs. He called me early Saturday morning with some advice that led to our best run of the weekend.
Fontana, CA. - Jegs Pacific Sports Nationals
May 14, 2010 - After three long years of development, Tony Garrels and I set out for Fontana, CA. To run at the Pacific Sports Nationals. It had been three years since we had last run the car. We had put in countless hours (and dollars) building the new Hemi engine for the Thunderbird and replacing the Lenco transmission with a Liberty.
I decided that Fontana might be a good place for use to do our initial testing for a couple reasons. First, with the big increase in horsepower we have, we wanted to test on a track that had been prepped by the NHRA (they really do a good job). Second, Scott Jennings wanted to be there to help with the tune-up and had made arrangements to have Dwayne Walker (brother of pro street racer Randy Walker) available to help sort out our clutch setup.
Three years is a long time to be away from the track and we pretty much had forgotten everything we had learned running the old A460 headed combination. We were rusty to say the least. We made three attempts to get the car down the track during qualifying and I had to abort each run. Right at the drop of the clutch, the car instantly drove out of the groove and spun the tires. We made adjustments to the clutch, tire pressure, shock & strut settings, gear ratios, and finally the four link. After the third attempt on Saturday afternoon, I felt we had made so many changes to the car that we were just lost. So I decided that rather than run the car Sunday and risk hurting anything, we would relax for the day before packing up and making the long tow home.
After we got back to the shop, I went through the rear suspension to find out why the car wouldn't go straight and I found the problem. It turned out to be a maladjusted anti-roll bar that was causing the problem. We did manage to get some data from our three attempted runs, but most importantly we got an opportunity to shake off the cob webs from not racing for three years. This was also the first time we had entered a NHRA Competition Eliminator event and we needed to learn the procedures, get to know the officials, and meet some of the other racers. Now we'll get ready for our first Division 6 points meet at Woodburn, OR.
