Department Of Boost
Alpha Geek
- Joined
- May 26, 2010
- Posts
- 8,809
- Reaction score
- 28
Be careful what you ask for!
When I was younger, I was either drag racing my blown alcohol altered, racing my Nostalgia Top Fuel dragster, road racing the Porsche, or working on a Top Fuel Funny Car team every weekend somewhere on the West Coast. I had a 48' stacker trailer and Toter home. I hauled all three cars in the trailer at the same time. My team would tow the truck from race to race and I would drive or fly in for the race and then haul ass home so I could get to work on Monday. At the same time I did all that while I was a Vice President at Caterpillar with 122 employees and also working for a Top Fuel team doing cylinder head/camshaft R&D. Looking back, I don't how I pulled it all off and where the energy came from because I was also raising two daughters during that period.
As a matter of fact, prior to that going on, I developed a billet aluminum 3V cylinder head for Top Fuel/Funny Car Donovan engines. A few teams ran the head with great success only to have the NHRA put a ban on them two years later. Some of the bigger teams complained so the NHRA changed the rules to limit TF/FC to one intake valve and one exhaust valve. At that time, a lot of teams were still using cast aluminum heads and we were the second team to develop a billet head without water jackets. The heads were later used on Top Fuel drag boats and in the IHRA until everyone changed over the 426 Ed Pink platform and then all of the development went that direction.
I have a photo of those 3V heads on my computer at work and will post them tomorrow. I am resurrecting one of the few pairs that are left for a guy to run Top Fuel in the Goodguys circuit. I'm sure that they will ban them too.
If we want to go way back into the past, I was a part time crew member on the Blue Max funny car from 1981-1984 and we won 3 straight championships. I was also working for a machinist/Funny Car chassis builder that was based out of Seattle.
I enjoyed all of the racing and what I have learned from some of the greatest minds in motorsports. However, as glorious as it all sounds, I spent a lot of time away from home and missed out on a lot of the important family things. If I could go back and do it all over again would I . . . . . . hard to say. If your married, racing and being gone on the road all of the time, that is a great way to become single again. My racing, traveling, and the selfishness that goes along with always trying to set new records, cost me my first marriage and every relationship after that. Which or course was a blessing anyway because I have a great wife of 15 years now.
Not sure how I got onto a rant and started spouting my resume so sorry for being long winded. Thankfully, things are much simply these days and I only have my Mustang to tinker with.
Awwwwwwwww, cry me a river.
