Tigges Talk - Reading

So our last race of the season was at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania. We had a full crew for this event. Fred, Mark & Claire drove the rig & RV down on Wednesday. Yolana & I drove down from Maine arriving Wednesday evening, followed by Pete & Nancy from Massachusetts. Thursday brought Kevin & Jill from Massachusetts & Dave from Detroit. We had plenty of help and plenty of food.

With 19 TAFC on the property we would need to qualify well. In Q1 we had moved some weight around on the car and shook pretty hard. Fred pedaled the car then ran it out the back end, but clipped the finish line cones, disqualifying the pass. Still on the outside looking in, and with bad weather expected on Saturday, there was no guarantee of three full rounds of qualifying. With the pressure on, the tuning calls were made for a safe run to qualify, and Fred delivered a 5.65 / 254 pass to get us in the show in the 9th position in the second session.

The computer data showed a clear path to swing for the fences in Q3 if we had one. Friday night brought heavy rain as expected, with wind. Saturday morning was hurry up and wait until we told we would be going up for Q3 at 1PM right after the pro fuel session. We got the car warmed up and all checked out & towed up to the line armed with a tuneup expected to get us well into the top half with a low 5.50.

Drag racing has this way of humbling you... The car left hard and straight, but labored mid-track showing faint blue death smoke. The board came up with a 5.68 at only 231 and it looked like it put the burst panels out in the lights. Yolana was back in the trailer at the time, she heard the boom a lot clearer than we did. Driving down to get the car, Mark saw the replay on the bigscreen, with fire under the car. There was no oil on the track in shutdown, but quite a bit of damage when we got to the car.

The burst panels were all out, the fuel tank split open & leaking, and the top of the fuel pump blown off. The concussion had also bent the body latch and cracked the body in a number of places, as well as pushing the firewall back and ripping out several rivets. We towed straight to the pit bypassing the scales & fuel check as we were still qualified 9th and the first round of eliminations was just a few hours away.

I was pulling the left valve cover when I saw the pink oil advancing towards my feet from under the car. The engine diaper had kept the oil off the track, but the hole in the oilpan told the story of thrown rods. The computer data started to fill in the storyline, no oil pressure when Fred had swapped feet at the green light. He had gauge oil pressure at warm-up, at fire up on the starting line, through the burnout and at pre-stage, but none at the hit. Continuing teardown exposed the root cause, a sheared oil pump drive, the same thing that had happened to Paul Gill a few years back.

Indeed, the tuneup was there for a career best pass. With no oil pressure, the rod bearings had welded to the crank in the first two seconds of the pass then spun in the rods. Rods 3 & 4 kicked out of the engine just past the 330. The car still ran 206 MPH at halftrack on six cylinders with the rest of the rods welding to the crank. Just before the finish line the burst panels let go followed by flames getting through the fuel tank vent and blowing up the tank, splitting a side seam and also blowing off the top of the fuel pump. Fred got it all under control and made the turn-off at the top end. He made the call in the pit that we were done...

Thanks to those that jumped in and helped without asking, and for offers of parts and even complete engines, you know who you are and it is appreciated. We were all pretty quiet for a while, going through the motions of clean-up and preparation for putting it back in the trailer for the last time this season. It is disappointing to be right there and get the wrong side of racing luck yet again. The bottom line is everybody came out safe, and with no valvetrain damage it only cost $10K of damage to get that $1,700 qualifier check. You certainly don't race an alky car to make money.

Personally, I had some good times at Reading. I got to be one of the first to shake the hand of new Top Alcohol Dragster World Champ Chris Demke as he towed back to his pit from fuel check, and made a new racing friend in E/SA Class Winner and final round Stock runner up Michael Iacono who has an absolutely beautiful '67 396 powered Camaro. I've had the pleasure of crewing for five races this year, and I'm starting to enjoy the camaraderie of other competitors in the alcohol classes.

Best of all, I've enjoyed working with a great group of guys & gals in the Tigges Racing Family. At Reading I saw other teams almost drive over crewguys scrambling to fix a wheelie bar during staging and watched a dragster fall off the stands at the hit of the throttle during warm-up. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but having the organization, attention to detail and cross training that the Tigges promote on the team make situations like that much less likely to happen. I won't even get started on the laughter and food. All you guys are a blast to work with... thanks for the year!

Didn't take too many pictures, but mine and some post-mortem shots from Mark are here:

Reading Pix

See ya all at the track next season!

Chris Saulnier
Mechanic Falls, Maine