On Sunday May 6,2012 our Nostalgia Drag race club NETO (Northeast Timing Organization) held our first race of the season. We had a great turnout, 40 cars overall. 22 in Nostalgia eliminator (10.00 and slower, any dial, full tree), which i run with the Chevy II, and 18 Comp eliminator cars (9.75 and faster, .25 incremental index, .400 pro tree). In the end 20 Nostalgia cars made the first round. I was far from ready for the race as i just got the car together and running on Saturday. I put it together with the motor from last year, which was not the plan. The motor had been sitting in the side of my garage since i took it out in November. The plan was to rebuild the high horsepower modified motor that came with the car. But its not ready yet. I did have the tranny completed re done and the 6 inch converter redone too, expecting to rune the high horsepower motor. Anyway, when i picked up the tranny, about 10 days before the race I started to formulate a plan to get to the races. If I could find a converter i could it back togather as it had been. The converter i used last year couldn't be used without being cut open and completely cleaned of metal parts (thats because the tranny had been in bad shape and full of metal pieces so the old converter was too). I bought a cheap "street fighter" converter from Summit that matched what i had the year before and I was able to get it back together in the nick of time. Of course the old motor had nothing done to it other than change the oil and filter. Mentally, i was not ready, but I was there. I felt i neeeded to do this because the new motor won't be done for at least another month, that would mean i would miss a minimum of 4 races. So i showed up Sunday assured i would go out in the first round. Anyway, I went 5 rounds and won. The car itself was running terribly. It developed a miss that we could not pinpoint. Still haven't. We pulled the plugs and cleaned them ( I had no spare plugs), we adjusted the float level in the carb, checked all the valve spring seat pressures and adjusted them, put in frsh gas (the fuel cell still had about 3 gallons of gas from last year).
I had 2 crappy time trials, so i had to guess on a dial for the first round. I wasn't even sure I would make first round we were stilltrying to find the problem when round 1 was called. In round one I cut a good light (for me any light that starts with .0 is good), .087 and ran .05 off my number but my opponent had a real bad light and i won. It still missed but not as bad. In round 2 I cut a .067 light ran .05 off again and won easily. In round 3 I got lucky, I had a .101 light but my opponent spun and I won easily. Round 4 was the closest. I had an .077 light and my opponent had an .075 light. I was .013 off my number and he caught me right at the finish line, but he broke out by .048. I was now in the final against the fastes car in Nostalgia and one of the best drivers too (he is young, not like most of us). I figured my only hope was to have a good light and run my number and hope he breaks out. I had a .019 light, but the miss was terrible. It was popping and missing like crazy. he passed me well before the finish line (he actually ran a 10.006 on a 10.00 dial) and i figured I lost. But luck was on my side, he had a red light and i won. A completely unexpected turn of events.
Now before the next race, I'm changing plugs, plug wires, fuel pump, fuel filter and rebuilding the carb. My buddy who bult the engine also wants to chamge the didtributor. I hope that solves the miss.
This is in the winner circle
This was my opponent in round 2, a low 10 second car.
You wouldn't have to change all that stuff. 
