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..................Return Index Page...............................................................Page Two Bonneville 2002
...........................................................................Bonneville 2002 Pictures
................................................................................20002002 Page One
WZJUNK and his brother and 6 of their friends from MO. and Ok. showed up at my place Thursday night after a two day drive west. They were tired campers.
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We left the next morning early for the salt and stopped at Bo Huff's place on the way up. I think they all enjoyed the stop and the trip up went good except for about 20 miles of new chip seal (lots of little rocks) in one section.
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I spent some time with Ken (Driver) and Nick Smith of the Hot Rod Works and their
car with a V-7 sbc. They just started racing at B'ville last year and set a record with the car then in the 160's.
They qualified for a record at least twice during speed week, but I don't think they were able to back it up. They
made a lot of runs trying for 175 so they could move to the long course. I wasn't able to run them down before
I left.
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The BMR guys have been trying to set a record over 200 with their 302 inch GMC 6 for the last couple years, but have had bad luck. They do have a 200 mph record with the car at El Mirage. Last year they qualified with about a 205 and then broke the ring and pinion on the return run. This year on the first run they were running over 206 and blew a large hole in the side of the engine down around the 4th mile. Will spun around 5 times, a couple of those with the chute out. The current engine has a centrifugal blower and makes about 800 hp. Not bad for a 6. They have wanted the 200 mph record and then they were going to retire the car. They have a roadster nearing completion that they eventually want to run 300 and I'll bet they do it (with a hemi). The car in the picture holds 8 to 10 current records with the two different size 6's running blown, fuel and gas. This car was the SCTA points champion for about 3-4 years in the 90's.
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The opposite of the BMR car is this pickup with a 250 chevy 6 that ran 131. The guy got the truck for doing a brake job for someone and he said he probably has less in the engine than the BMR guys have in a set of rods. This truck has the stock frontend with the 6 and a close ratio muncie with a ford rearend. He welded in a roll bar and has gone racing. I've seen some really good 6's in cars that are a lot more aero only running a couple miles an hour faster. Heck my truck is 16 inches shorter with a mild sbc and can't run 131. This guy is having a lot of fun on a very low budget.
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Here is your basic around town motorcycle running a blown Arias motor. I did actually see the guy ride this.
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A nice surprise was meeting some of you that post on RRT now or in the past. This was Alan Gingles and his newly chopped chevy next to 1FATGMC. He was there with the North of 49 crew.
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And then there were the rocket cars. The one on the left was from Canada, in
the middle was WZJUNK's 8 motor car and on the right his brother Sam's single larger motor car. There were a number
of runs with no clear winner. The Canadian car was the slowest, but since it went the straightest due to proper
tire selection and a lot of weight it had longer runs. Sam's car was straight and fast due to the down force of
the motor, but only while the rocket fired. As soon as the rocket burn was over the car was quite exciting as it
would lose stability and cartwheel down the course. The most exciting was WZJUNK's 8 engine car, especially one
run when only four of the engines fired and they were all on the same side. The car made a sharp U-turn almost
ran over one spectator and headed for the rest of the guys on one side of the starting line and stopped just short
of running under some cars. Another run it almost went airborne on ignition. John dropped the bottom 4 rockets
off which helped some
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Here we see John (WZJUNK) setting up for another exciting run. Note he has his eyes down course with one hand on the firing button and the other hand on, well we won't go into that. Of course the proper head gear is required and I think John was way ahead in that department.
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The Salty Dog Tour guys from Missouri found the Salty Dog Car and adopted it or they were adopted by the car's crew. These guys had a sense of humor. We probably should have checked John's shorts also after his rocket car almost took out one section of the spectators.
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Going down the road on the way home after another great time on the salt.
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The following pages are mainly pictures I took to help me in the construction of my Lakester. Hope they are some interest to some of you. .......................................................
....................................................................................Page Two Bonneville 2002