Tigges Talk - Atco NJ Regional 2022

Shaking Off The Cobwebs

Team Tigges has been sidelined for two years. Between Covid, work schedules and the price of everything, the car has not seen the outside of the shop since the Lebanon Valley Regional way back in July 2020. We had planned to get out earlier this year but getting recertifications done on parts (specifically the blower) delayed our re-entry into competition until this past weekend’s regional at Atco Dragway in New Jersey.

Personally, I was not really looking forward to visiting southern New Jersey in August. I am not a fan of heat, that is why I live in Maine. As I write this the temperature is a blissful 61 degrees. The ten day forecast did nothing to brighten my outlook, with projected highs in excess of 90 degrees for every day we would be on site… groan.

Fred, Claire, Mark, Rick, Ollie the chihuahua & I left the plant in Holbrook, Massachusetts a few hours later than expected on Wednesday under blistering clear skies. Dave drove up from South Carolina, arriving at the track before us. The trip was uneventful other than the normal hideous traffic in and around NYC. A trip that is normally point to point in five hours took us nine. It was a balmy 87 degrees… at 9PM… groan. We located a spot in the pits, got the generator up and running, got the car out & covered before we bedded down for the night. Dave, Rick & I slept in the race trailer & the Tigges’ in the RV.

Thursday’s plan was to go over the car, fire it, set the timing, check for issues and get the chassis re-certified. We got the awning & the rest of the pit set-up and Larry got the certification done for us during the day. We fired the car three times Thursday, discovering some minor leaks, some easily solved, others requiring more effort, like removing the blower to repair a pushed out valley gasket. Fun work in 98 degree heat. All told, starting with a dry tank, we drained 15 gallons of methanol into the car during the day. Keith, King of Salem NH & his wife arrived late in the afternoon with their RV & we completed our full crew.

Friday offered three qualifying sessions. All of them blessed us with thick air & temperatures of over 90 degrees. To give you an idea of the heat & humidity, Atco is 148 feet above sea level. The corrected density altitude for the first session was 2,684 feet with water grains over 100 and a track temperature exceeding 130 degrees. Our first session the car did something very rare for us, smoking the tires right at the hit. We have been trying to get the center bearing pressure plate to work in our set-up and attributed that and the exceptional track prep to this failure. Our best squirt was in Q2, a 5.78 that left us qualified 6th in a full field of 8 cars. The heat got to Fred in Q3 with a hip cramp contributing to a partial throttle pass that left us feeling glad that the day was over.

Saturday’s first round of eliminations got bumped up from 3PM to 1:30PM and even with the old pressure plate in the car we got bumped ourselves, again blowing the tires off right at the hit, which is somewhat of a head scratcher. At least we have plenty of power available. Back at the pit we did a full prep for our next race, the regional in Epping NH. That should be another beauty. Late August at NED can be blistering.

With the preprep we did on Saturday, all we needed to do Sunday morning was pull down the awning & load the stuff. We left the track at 8:30AM & got back to the plant at 4PM. All in all, it was a fun to be back at the track, shaking off the cobwebs of two years off. Funny thing… Thursday during set-up we found some real cobwebs up in the front body struts. We left them there to see if they would survive the run. They didn’t.

Congratulations to Matt Gill for his perfect light TAFC win, Tom Fox Jr. for his first regional win in an all blown car final over on the dragster side & John Ausherman for his successful licensing in Joe Cantrell’s dragster. What I’d like to know is exactly how may humans can fit in a Tom Fox mini-van…

Chris Saulnier - Team Tigges
Mechanic Falls, Maine