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

[Larry Mayfield]

  Thursday in Two Parts...

The day dawned bright and clear.  Up early for our usual breakfast and 
headed out.  Allowed to get on the salt at 7 am, no camping on the salt 
ever. Get the car uncovered, and the awning up.   Checked the tire 
pressures: I run 60 in the Goodyear Front Runners and 70 in the Goodyear 
Front Runner LSR tires.  I do that because the car will kind of hinge 
around the front end even in a long slide with the rear tires making the 
long excursions sideways. So I want those suckers to have no grip 
sideways at all to prevent rolling them off the rims and then the rims 
digging into the salt and pole vaulting the car up and over. No, no, I 
do not like that scenario at all.  Check the oil and it is right on the  
mark and even though it has an aborted dyno run and the, ahem, fun run 
of yesterday on it, it looks like I just poured it in.  dale touches 
everything under the hood to make sure it was all ok, Funbeam Chuck also 
adds a pair of eyes looking to make sure it is all satisfactory.  We put 
more fuel into the car. We actual don't really use much Around a gallon  
and a half for a full boogie run through the 5 mile, charge the battery 
for an hour or so while we fiddle around with stuff, and putting gear 
into the truck.  I take three tires with the truck just in case one gets 
farkled and needs one to make it back to the pit.  Tool bag just in 
case, lager ice chest for IC ice. Normal cooler for drinks for the crew, 
and a host of other stuff.  When the driver is ready,  we sally forth. 
Dale does the push truck driving duties, Chuck is riding shotgun and the 
crew chief is in the rear seat.  They push me the 3 or so miles to the 
start line where we get into an interminably slow line. Glacial speed is 
an overstatement. Seems like just about every other car or bike has some 
kind of down course farkle. Was the same yesterday. Had a T-bird lose a 
glass window... wow, what a chore that is. every piece of glass has to 
be found and picked up.  While waiting inline we always get lots of folk 
who stop by and chat and take pictures. I had a wonderful conversation 
with a high school girl and boy. They stopped by and chatted for almost 
30 minutes. What a delight!  We keep pushing to the line with our 
comment of "time for the hourly move 10 feet forward"....  But, we 
finally get to the location we chose to start gearing up.   I put on the 
suit pants and my under booty shoes and then start the laptop.  Turn on 
the battery power to the car, start the A9P and tweecer. Start the 
laptop and crap, not talking to the tweecer.  Shut everything down and 
reboot it all.  had to do that a couple of times to get it to data 
logging. Seems to be working satisfactorily. I had earlier loaded the 
spark changes I made into the tweecer so hopefully that would be ok.  
Filled the IC tank with another 40 pounds of ice, closed it's lid and 
Dale put the tonneau on.  I finish gearing up and we put me into the 
car, or is that we put the car around me?   But this time things are 
different! My left hand is not trapped by that big steering wheel and I 
can move my legs around to the pedals! Life is good, lol... Get to the 
line and Dale says to the starter, he is gonna make a full run this 
time.  Monty, the starter comes over tries to pull some more on the 
straps which is futile because when Dale pulls on them, they are TIGHT. 
I can almost breathe. I do a lot of deep breathing, because honestly, I 
don't know how far down range I get before I do actually breathe.  This 
time the starter say light it up, and when I nod, he points down range. 
I snick it into the AODs middle position on the gear shift, which is 
supposed to be 1,2,3 without OD.  I set off and after a short while that 
sucker shifts into OD! I mash the pedal a bit and it down shifts into 
what is I hope 3rd. Then I move the shift lever to a position which is 
hopefully the right gear. Nothing happens. well, it shouldn't because  
it is in third gear. Knot headed me, I decide to change the gear shift 
position once again.  Well, lemme tell ya, from third to second and the 
engine RPM buzzed to about 7200 rpm and I nearly head a heart attack, 
lol. My first thought was that it the motor was merely injured before, 
it was fatally so this time.

see part B

mayf