In early May outside Tulsa, the weather is manic. One minute it is freezing cold, the other it is baking hot and in the middle there somewhere torrential storms punish the landscape.
It was that type weather on the weekend of the first Throwdown in T-Town for the '23 season. Sam had secured a buyer for the bike during the off-season. There were many upgrades he had done in the interim, including landing a sponsor for the season prior to the sale, plus a major upgrade in the injector hat and barrel valve.
The new sponsor had changed the livery of the machine, simply done by a wrap. The new look is Red, White and Blue. It had no stickers on it, so I got to hang a couple BURN FUEL lightnin' bolts on there and that made me quite pleased.
But that new hat and valve, man we fought that one. Ultimately, at the track with limited time between storms, (plus the pressure of this outing being the last one for the bike in the States), Sam desperately wanted to make sure the machine was in a solid state of tune and ready for the new custodians.
One warm-up,the new parts went from idle to holy-shit when the throttle was simply breathed on and there was a hang-up in the works, meaning the engine would hang-up at 7000 plus RPM and the fellas had to physically force shut the throttle blade by hand. Sketchy to say the least when the bike is on the pop-up stand in the pits and it wants to jump out of the saddles. Try this, try that. Thursady was lost to an unhappy combo and every thing we tried made no difference in the setup.
The old hat and barrel valve were reinstalled early Friday, which took precious time but was indeed faster and less risky than trying to make the new setup happy.
Pit thrashes are part of the equation, and Sam had the bits and pieces on the trailer to afford to swap parts out. I made some new hoses, and a neighbor offered his well-equipped race trailer with a vise and power tools to make that a simple enough process. But the old parts were back on, the data looked good, and we were ready to make a pass Friday.
Our friend Mitch Brown was on the other nitro bike that showed up and he had his share of problems too, his team were deep in the weeds with a scored blower and a tight spot in the engine, so off came the head. And out came the blower.
If you haven't picked up on this yet, Top Fuel Motorcycle takes a staggering level of commitment and by commitment I mean scads of cash.
Friday, the weather was clear and calm. we made two passes, bike wanted to steer left, so the decision was made to shift the axle slightly to compensate for Saturday's passes. Things were looking up for the next day, but as we left for the night the storms were brewing.
Friday night was a little hectic, the pits got hit hard. Tents were twisted, deep puddles were everywhere.... The sun came out early Saturday and dried everything out by 10am. But, the track electronics were not operational. Word was rodents had chewed thru the data cables. Fast forward to 4pm and the day is still perfect for racing but there was none to be had. I mentioned that lets just do this with a flashlight and a win caller at the stripe. People were seriously thinking about it.
By 5pm the track was functioning and racing underway. We got ready, setup into short staging when the storm rolled in and soaked the entire track. at 6pm, that was it. Rained out and everything got soaked.... We got two hits in during this outing and no more.
