Mark Thomas' accusations!

On DRO, they have an article about how Mark Thomas thinks someone tampered with his Barrel valve causing him to Push his heat gaskets out on 2 consecutive runs! A question: How long does it take to change that out, and how can anyone do something to a motor without both the driver and crewchief seeing it?

 

One time someone slipped into our pit and put the wrong transmission ratios in. Another time they put too much counterweight on the clutch and screwed in too much static. Plus, they kept messing us up on the main jets and high speeds after we put the right ones in. To make matters worse, this kept on happening for years and we could never figure out who it was that was doing it.

The worst time was when someone came by and changed the number 7 intake pushrod to a bad one when we weren't looking and it fell off at 2.1 seconds. It blew the engine up and nearly burnt the car to the ground.

Boy I'd like to catch that guy.

LOL.

 

RG, you forgot that time at Dallas when that guy changed your blower pulley to 50%!

 

We use to have someone loosen up the valve covers in the staging lanes?

Never caught the person.

We got a description and put up a reward, but still never got the sucker.

 

I believe all of the problems listed above to a degree did happen . I know in the most recent case that a barrel valve cannot be changed at the racetrack without the owners knowledge , and a tuner would know as soon as it fired if it was changed. I have told Mark personally that I don't believe that it did or could have happened at the race track . Seeing the other stories above I believe it may have been the same person or entity , and I look forward to the release of that comic book heroes movie... as the hulk is waning in popularity .

 

roflmao Was the guy big, dumb, and stupid looking?

BTW, congrats on the deal! Coming up your way next month, will have to look you up.

[ July 19, 2003, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Pat McGill ]

 

Hey Randy,

I gotta come clean, it was me! You see, I was born in Roswell, New Mexico on an Air Force base in the mid 60's. Race cars are the closest thing to space ships so I have secretly (or so I thought) been collecting pieces and technology off of your's and other's cars to I could build a vehicle to catch up to the mother ship. Sorry for any inconvenience.

 

On my first qualifying pass at the 1996 Winternationals, the engine sounded real sparky when we started it up. I did the burnout, backed up and prestaged. I rev'ed it up to 5,500 and it took very little throttle to do it. I dropped the hammer and it hiked the front end immediately and hit the wheelie bar so hard it smoked the tires and then the front end bounced back to earth. I have it on video tape.

When we got back to the pits, we found it knocked most all of the ring lands out of the pistons and pushed all of the bearings about .030 wide even though I was on the gas only about 1 second. It ruined a brand new set of pistons and rods.

Come to find out, someone stole the main jet, high speed jet and pump loop jet out of the fuel system so all of these were wide open. Kinda like having 3 .50 jets (not .050). Truth is, the fuel system was on a flow bench and I never replaced the jets after it came off and apart. I ASSUMED they were still in there when we ran, so the idiot in the mirror was to blame.

 

Hilarious, that must have been a tough one to explain to the rest of the guys. Isn't the weather beautiful out here?

 

I think there was actually two of them. Double teaming us and keeping us on our toes.

Give me a ring when you get in town. Seattle this weekend.

 

2 of them? lmao

Have fun at Seattle, don't fall asleep during the fuel cars again!

 

I know Mark very well and personally I think he is off base here. As Jimmy said the motor was going to eat itself anyways cause the cam was installed wrong. The only one to blame for that is Mark since he built the motor not Jimmy. I raced with these guys all last year and I doubt someone would switch the barrel valve. I cant tell you how many times we left the Holbrook Perfomance Parts Camaro outside last year and no one screwed with it and the points battle was extremely heated last year. This year you have really only 2 heavy hitters in Rob and Mark. Les.....Good luck to you guys this year! Wish we were there!