No more A Fuel cars in Vegas

Apparently A Fuel cars are no longer competitive in Vegas. Last year there was parity in Sin City & now it is as bad as Denver, Acton, Fallon, etc.
7 out of 8 cars that qualified at the divisional were all blower cars. The only cars that didn't qualify were A fuel cars.
I know I'm personally going to follow Duane Shields and leave division 7. I hear the weather is nice up north???

 

This is whats great about being sportsman racers with no major sponsors you can race at the the races that best fit your application.

 

Are you saying I'm whining Will??? You could always man up & say that to my face!
What happened to the Will that said if it was unfair he'd say something??? Showing your true colors!!!
Vegas was a slaughter for A Fuel cars!!! You can't argue or deny that. It just really sucks that the only track within 400 miles of my house that I considered my home track I will no longer be competitive. It is the only track my friends and family are willing to come see me race.

 

And since you brought up Houston, what was the split between the fastest A fuel car & the fastest blown car?

412 David Brounkowski
E2 ****WINNER**** 0.143 5.246 266.74
72 Chris Demke
E3 ****WINNER**** 0.063 5.310 267.69

And I was told that Chris' run in the final would've been a high twenty.

So with your attitude Will A fuel cars should run at sea level and the blower cars can have all the high altitude tracks? I hope there are enough blown cars left to put on a show.
I want whats best for the entire class. Not like you!

 

True colors

I think you mean back on the beach................Yeah, we are back working on our hot rods..................Just like we have been for the last 7 years.........rule change, after rule change, after rule change, etc.......Speaking of the 7 years that you love, Will, where have the improvements been? Oh yeah, the heads won't flow anymore.....or is it that the air is supersonic? Maybe it is the air backing up in the ports.

 

Will is talking smack again or using

Jeff, I would agree that Las Vegas is another one of the tracks where your not going to be competitive. The tracks you mentioned, are ones that wont probably get any a fuelers. (or at least none that qualify) The last time a type of car had the advantage of over a tenth of a second, a rule change was enacted. Maybe one should be done now. Or at least for the tracks mentioned.

Will is quick to point out that the other a fuelers are at the ranch working. I'm sure he is correct. They are having to fix all the parts that are breaking because of the rule change!!!! Never before have I seen so much parts attrition by our a fuelers. This is one of the hidden cost of each rule change.

Speaking of Houston, I believe the only blower car there made it to the finals and would have beat me on ET alone had the car not knocked out the cone. (about a 5.27 run)

The A fuel cars have been competitive at all but the two Vegas races. They should have been, in years past, the early races have been dominated by the afuelers because these are the best conditions of weather and altitude. We will see how it shakes out in the Summer months and at tracks where you might happen to see 3000 ft corrected. Not one race yet before Vegas has seen that.

So let Will keep talking the smack. It will certainly get people to view his site, and that is what his goal is. The rest of us just need to travel further to pick the races that you can have fun at, or stay home, saving alot of money to fix the cars after taking them to a race this year!

Duane Shields
5 TAD

 

I find it hard to believe that if Bill R. and Tom C. drug there stuff out there they would not run half way desent. Whats the Alt. there ?

 

where you AT?

Will why do people hate A Fuel? I thought racism was over ? give em back 96

 

everytime in turn on the TV I see my ole' Buddy Duane.

You get 'em Duane..
Your making em ALL look bad.

keep up the great work.

Hudson

 

Senior moment

I also forgot to say.

Dont say anything about this to RUSS. It gets him all bummed out.

Demke has a pretty bad Hot Rod right now.

 

Duane,
Cool to see you pop in here I thought you have always had one of the toughest A Fuel cars out there. Your a pretty heavy hitter in my book. Is it hard for you guys at the strip? Jason

 

I am so surprised by some of the posts here. Especially by ex BAD guys.
I will play devil’s advocate here.
Four national events so far three in good sea level type air (500-2500) and one in 2500 plus air .

Race #1 (first event with new rules) did not keep too many A/Fuelers away and few tested so they must have thought they would not slow down too much (my opinion only)
7 BAD`s in field and nine A/F`s
Winner BAD: semis finalists,3 bads, 11 a/f (domination by BADs...yes) BAD`s had approx. .10 sec on best A/F

Race #2 (1500 feet of air average)
13 a/f`s, 3 BAD`s Winner a/f semi finalists 4 a/f`s ets four different a/fs go in the 5.20`s and they are over .1 faster than BADs. Domination by A/F

Race #3 (1000 feet of air)
14 a/f`s in field (only 3 or 4 BAD on grounds) 2 in field.
Final A/F wins BAD ru. (should have won by all counts)
A/F in the 5.20`s (four or five) BAD`s (none)
BAD`s .10 slower in performance, it was dominated by A/F`s even though Chris should have won. Sorry Chris!!!!!!

Race #4 (3300 feet of air average)
9 A/F’s in field despite high air, 7 BAD's
Winner: BAD, 2 bad's in semis 2 A/F in semis
et BAD best 5.32 Whitely and A/F 5.46 ISBELL
While ets were dominated by BADs the A\fs made to round three. And no discredit intended but the top six or eight A/Fs were not there to compete.
Most east coast divisional races have been dominated by af ‘s
west coast div races have been won by BAD and performances (at Phoenix was equal)
What are you expecting guys.
While I did not agree with the rules change, and thought there would be no parity at all after listening to most of the a/f pundits’, I have to say there is not a lot to pick from in either class. The quickest a/f's are already quicker than any BAD has ever gone after less than a quarter of the season is done.
I am not biased to BADs I love both types of cars.
I am looking at the number only. And they do not lie. Yes the attrition is likely to be worse this year, at least for the first half of the season until it all gets figured out, and for that the rules suck and it is not fair that the injected guys seem to be the ones taking it up the arse. But I am still seeing lots of carnage from the top funded bads as well as they wring the necks in their ride trying to run low 30s and high 20s.

What is the answer? Well the answer is not bitching here without looking at all the numbers Jeff. You qualified in the top half of the field at the nat and went to the semis. Was the air that much worse at the div race. I see it as only 200 feet different. Your run from the nat would have qualified at the div race.
Do you want to be competitive or do you want to go out there and destroy the BAD’s and make it an A/Fuel class only. If so, you kind of suck .

BTW the air is great up here in the north west three tracks are in the sea leval range but woodburn does get hot in July. Spokane in early June should be less that 3000 feet, but who knows.
If you are looking for hotels for Mission Div race in May, call me I usually book a block of rooms. Duane loves it at Mission, even though he likely wont be here this year (my guess only).

Dean

www.speedzonemagazine.com
604 826 5775

 

So; some of the a/fuel guys are taking advantage of this: http://www.nhra.com/content/news/34825.htm Atleast you got free oil downs. Not getting 100 runs on the rods anymore? What did you have to put some gear in it, having take it past 5000 redline?

 

Will:
You never heard me whine about the A Fuel cars having an advantage then. I did what I thought needed to be done to be competitive.
And FYI: I had the second fastest A Fuel car at the national. Langdon was no.1 & Sheilds & myself both ran a 5.381. Duane did out qualify me but we stepped it up for eliminations!!! Vegas may not be as bad as Denver but there is no chance for an A Fuel car to be competitive there. An A Fuel car will "NOT" run low 30's with the current rules.

Dean:
Maybe you should've gone to the nationals instead of just reading about them on the internet. Del & myself did make it to the semi's. And I personally wanna thank Cowie & Whitely for breaking and giving us that chance.
And yes I think I had a good chance to qualify for the divisional, why would I? I think we could've picked up a couple of hundredths but that wouldn't have gotten it done. Not even close. It was still a slaughter and I don't like going to a gun fight with a knife.

I know I don't go to a lot of races but I do have the best parts money can buy and the smartest people in racing helping me. I can tell you that the parts carnage is outrageous right now. And that is not going to go away.

I was not "whining" when I came on here. I was telling my side of the story. I honestly don't know any A Fuel cars that will go back to Vegas. That being said, what kind of show will they put on if all the A Fuel cars don't show up??? Isn't the class now made up of about 80% A Fuel cars? With this current attitude amongst you keyboard racers, the class will continue to be divided and nothing will be accomplished. Division 7 which was once the baddest of divisions will continue to lose it's great racers in TAD (i.e. Obannon, Shields, etc).

 

the saga continues

Dean, Please check your facts on Houston. The a fuel cars did not have a tenth of a second advantage. 6 hundreths and that is only because the final wasn't a valid number.

The point is that we are taking a good running style of car and making them a parts eating machine that cost a lot more money to run. Creech, We should not have to do this. (The blower guys choose to stay with a combination that requires more parts to go fast, and they are free to make that choice. Most a fuel guys changed because they could go faster and spend less, The rule changes are making the cost go up to go slower, that is not right)

The sad part about Las Vegas is that with the best of conditions, (it was only in the 50's and 60's in Vegas) there was over a tenth of a second difference. Some will say that I could have run better than that, I don't know whether we could have or not, I didn't go there. Why, I like to have a chance to win and in Vegas in April you can have 50 degree whether or 90 degree weather, not conducive to winning with an afueler. While this year it was cool, the numbers were not. The division race saw fewer A fuelers because the other guys decided not to race because of compeititive conditions, (Niver, Isbell, Miersch) I really believe this race and a few others should have a different percentage (like 96 or 97) to where it can be equal.

I have decided to travel alot this year, why because we don't have an equal playing field. You have to think alot more about each race. I don't hold anything against the blower guys, this is a great time for them. Some will say we had our great time and they are probably right. That's why rules were changed to us, they just are not right at some of the tracks. Time will tell.

But for those keyboard crew chiefs that say it's all good in a fuel land. I know of several teams that would like for you to pay their repair bills. Will says it's only short term, he doesn't know. I would say it's more long term.

This is not a whining comment, just stating our opinion.

Duane Shields
5 TAD

 

Nothing New!

There is nothing new about the raqcers who are chasing National points picking tracks that suit their type of car. it is also not new for some of them to pick divisions where their chances of winning aqre much better. Hell if I had the money and was chassing the points I'd do it myself. I bet if you looked at the races and the temp and corrected altitude the top ten AFD in the country ran it would bear this out.
I don't think that a-fuel rcers want an advantage over the blown cars but it is not easy to come up with parity in every case. There is not a lot you can do with an injected fuel engine when the % is set. We all know that on a hot track with bad air the alcohol cars with limited overdrive are effected. But because of the transmissions allowed the BAD and the air pump they are running the advantage at some level of conditions will always favor the BAD. To avoid situations like Las Vegas there should be more or less nitro for the fuel cars allowed based on the corrected altitude for each day of racing. It would not increase the difficulty for NHRA as if today it was 96 instead of 94 they just post it and announce it several hours prior to racing. The fuel check guys at the other end don't care what it is they only need to know what it should be. It is only a reading on their meter. All this would require is to set up some sort of corrected altitude chart with the percentage of nitro at different levels. Not everyones weather stations will read the same it would require NHRA to use the same numbers they post for corrected altitude.
This would be very simple to impliment and with some tinkering would allow for much fairer competetion tor the extreme conditions and altitudes.