With the qualifying pressure off I concentrated on reaction time today and on the first pass I had a .012 followed by a .002. There was a cold front come through mid afternoon with a little rain so the second pass was an 11.41 on an 11.50 index. I had run heads up against the 3 time champ Andy Warren and the .002 light combined with the 11.41 to his 11.45 made him look like a big looser on the run. I added some fuel and took a turn out of the factory throttle linkage (usually good for about 7 hundredths) and thought that would make it just about an 11.51 but I was wrong on my calculations. I ran up against one of the heavy hitters in a 69 Impala with a 540 cu inch Scott Shaffrof motor running on an 11.00 index. At the mile an hour light I hit the brakes so hard that I smoked the tires and nearly crossed the center line but still ran an 11.457 breaking out while he ran an 11.016. The worst part was that I had a .015 light and he had a .109 light. The race was after dark and I should have realized I could have slowed down earlier.
At any rate I have had a great weekend and made several new friends despite the fact that they run GM products. Yesterday at the end of the day I went up into the tower to ask the announcer to mention about the fact that the car is a real R Code with original paint and 41,000 miles on it. While he was writing that down another of the NMCA staff mentioned that he remembered me from Chicago last year where I had lost in the final but cut back to back .003 reaction times prior to the final. That made the first official even more interested and when he found out that I have owned the car for 41 years and had traveled 1500 miles to come to the race he said my story was getting "better and better". Apparently every time I came up today they made a big deal out of it over the PA and I had a swarm of people comming to see the car and ask questions. It was great.
Already looking forward to next weekend at the Fun Ford Weekend in St. Louis.
Don Fotti
1968 1/2 428 CobraJet Mustang
2009 Mustang GT
38 foot Diesel pusher motorhome
26 foot Pace American trailer
plus 3 other Fords
