Winners Circle

We were keeping our fingers crossed for Darrell placing, thinking second or third (which are also money and certificate prizes) would be great today, but he happily took 1st place in the stock ETs. 'Too Deep', his aptly named vehicle performed well, as did his pit crew when a belt flew off at the end of the track.  We had it back on in a couple of shakes so he could go round and make the back to back runs to beat out every opponent. Most of the others are seasoned drivers, and they were surprised and taken off guard by his consistency and quickness both off the line, and at the finish. We are quite proud of him. A lot of hard work and thought goes into these trucks and with the disadvantages of not having tons of money, some things are done the hard way. He pulled the spool on the 9" differential, welded the spider gears into a big ball, and made his own positrac rear end. Although a mini-spool isn't so costly, they aren't durable, and the better ones are out of pocket as more important things take priority. This one isn't coming apart.
New for this run was a full manual reverse valve body, new B&M magashifter, 3' shift cable, lower stainless steel radiator hose, and numerous tweaks. Also new was the confidence and comfort with the truck he gained on each successful run. My worries about the back to back elimination heats were put to rest. We are still working on the engine overheating, so the driver doesn't have so much to do and watch in the cockpit. Need more $$$ :) 
Built for the mud, 'Too Deep' will only be a spectator at the nefarious horseshoe mud track today, which has an $8,000 first place pay-out. Because of the possible damages of the demolition style mud pit race with speeds in excess of 80 mph, this isn't something he wants to chance, not yet anyway.   Coming up next weekend is the mud races in Natchez, where he has a sponsorship from his job, so it's back in the trenches for some adjustments and parts here and there. He doesn't think his boss will take too kindly to not showing up after putting up a $2,000 sponsorship, which gets her a lot of radio advertising and free passes. I will be posting up a few more pictures of the competition in another album with a link here later, but wanted to share a few moments of these at hi-res(hopefully) in this blog. We hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed being  there to take them. These images help us remember the moment, and develop strategy for the following runs. Shift points, ballast, distractions such as passengers, and temperature control are all instrumental, and Curtis, Eryn, and myself make good sideline coaches, or at least we think so :)
Most of all, credit goes to the driver, and to God, whom we asked for a good day. We couldn't get any better.  AlbumParade