The 2005 season looks to be busy with two race meets expected each weekend - it will apparently depend on Mother Nature whether we race vintage stock cars or personal watercraft.

August 14 - The Clark's #33 Ford, Jim Sprague's nearly completed '36 Chevy modified, and Rosie Gerry's '33 Dodge coupe managed to make it to "Summerfest" at Beech Ridge Speedway as scheduled,  joining the many cars from MVRCA in their annual celebration and show of vintage racing machinery.  The "Wicked Good" cars got some good "Ridge" track time in, with the guys enjoying their first trips ever around the old oval.  AND, perhaps some more good news - Robbie believes that the asphalt of Beech Ridge has helped him discover the control problem with the '33 Ford - it now appears that the steering box itself is funky, and by maintaining a constant tension on the steering gears, he can make the car behave !  We have a new box to install this Spring, and here's hoping.  We hope to soon have photos from this exciting day at the Ridge.

August 6 - The cars are once again ready, but the school schedule for Ron's family cuts our crew substantially.  The '37 Nash coupe heads south for its transformation to racing configuration

July 30 - Another weekend for family, with a new family emergency taking priority over racing. 

July 23 - The cars are almost ready, but a family emergency had priority this weekend.

July 16 - The work on the Bangor cars continues, but at a slower pace, as work demands keep us from completing necessary work on the two cars.  This team misses another race date.

July 9 -  The race team from Bangor/Hermon simply had much too much to do to both their race cars to be able to make it to Bullwinkle's for this race date.

July 2 - The day begins with the fast youth division, and our kids are invited to join in with the vintage race cars.  Several of the kids are concerned about damaging the "fancier" vintage cars, but relax a bit when they are informed that the vintage cars are only another race car on the track with them, and that real race cars get scrunched.  The kids were also advised that both Erica and Ryan had been informed that they must consider the possibility that they may not become 'real' vintage race drivers until they have been upside down at least once.  That seemed to make it okay with the other kids, and away they went with their foot in it.  Ryan had trouble keeping the Ford nailed down, as his uncle had the week before, bringing with it a couple of spins and one meeting with an earthmover tire - and personal experience has proven to me that even one of these tires can slow a race car pretty rapidly.  Erica, in her first ride in the Chevy, found it a lot different from the Ford, and enjoyed a trio of spins herself.  But both cars finished intact, and Erica was discovered a short while later riding around on the back of an ATV with Jessica, a competing youth driver.  Kids learn quickly where the fun is; and racing brings with it many new friends.

With the Ford acting funny, it was time for a change in tactics.  The Clark boys have just kind of  "winged it"  with the driving chores, and anyone could be driving any car on any day.  But that is no way to diagnose ongoing problems with a particular race car.  So Rob gets the driving chores for the next few weeks as we try to figure the Ford out.  Ron gets the Chevy this week, and the battle continues. 

Ron figures it is his turn for the checkered this week, with the Ford mishandling.  But leave it to Rob who tries a new and forbidden tactic, as he discovers that the loose rear end continues to give nothing but trouble.  If it won't work in high gear, LET'S TRY SECOND.  But that gives an overall ratio of something like 9.8, and the flathead starts cranking some 6400 RPM when it flattens out 2/3 of the way down the straights!!!!   BUT, it stopped spinning loose coming out of the turns, and suddenly it was running side by side with the Chevy - go figure.......But the Chevy held her own as the lead went back and forth, at least she did until something "unhooked", and the rear of the car started bouncing through turns 3 and 4 like one of those old heavy '40's vintage Buicks with no shocks at all on the rear.  The oscillations didn't stop until the car was half way down the stretch.  So, nobody spins, but Ron again finds himself a close second when the checkered flag falls.  It is beginning to look like anyone can win in anything, so long as Ron is driving the other car.  Notwithstanding that fact, reviewing the videos of this race shows clearly that both these cars are rocking, and pretty evenly matched at that.  For a two car show the last three weeks, some must be coming to realize that these are REAL race cars, and will be putting on a show as other cars join the fray. 

So luck was with us. The flathead stood up to the extreme rpm asked of it, and we will be playing with gear ratios to find something that gives us a reasonable rpm, but still doesn't overpower the tires.  Can you imaging the torque that little engine is putting out at lower rpm, when it lights up BOTH of those slicks by just cracking the throttle.  Who could have imagined that we would have to REDUCE the torque applied in order to find sufficient traction, but it is beginning to appear that way - we shall see.

The Chevy seems to have suffered complete failure of all four rear lever arm shocks, so here we go again with the shock problem.  We may be forced to go to a "racing" shock, but may first try some of the old Ford lever arms, which are MUCH tougher, and can be adjusted.  But for July 2nd the race is history, and the Chevy might have done as well in Doug's "boat" race. 

June 25 - Again we find that none of the other vintage cars have found their way to Bullwinkle's for this week's racing, so we line up the "flathead" against the "in-line", with Ron in the Ford and Tom in the Chevy.  This being Tom's first time in the Chevy, Ron figures that this will be a cinch.  Not so.  The cars pull down the straight together, and run the turns side by side.  But things deteriorate for the Ford as soon as the throttle is opened as we leave turns 2 and 4. The rear end simply slides out from under, each time the throttle is touched, and the cars begin to separate after a couple laps.  In an effort to close on the Chevy, Ron gives the Ford a bit more throttle, coming out of four, and it just won't work.  The chassis changes made during the week don't seem to be working as intended, and the car is unstable coming out of each turn.  After a couple of spins, it becomes obvious that more work is necessary, and that the Chevy has overlapped and beaten the Ford, hands down.  Tom's first adventure in the new Chevy coupe was run without a mistake, and he took home the checkered.  Flathead folks like Ron often have trouble admitting that such a thing could ever happen, but other brands of race car have found their way to the winner's circle, even in the 50's.  Topping this "disaster", was the sudden and severe thunderstorm that caught racers scrambling to load and dodging nasty lightning strikes.  Next week ought to be busy with features to be made up, and several special races already planned.

June 18 - Well, once again the "Rain in Maine" took its toll.  Traveled all the way to Greenville to discover that there would be no racing on Saturday.  It rained in Greenville every day since Tuesday, and the track was too soft to run on - or so we were told!  The surface sure looked good !  Nice job of grooming !  We figured it would be nice to try the track out before it got torn up by all those other cars.  But someone had carelessly parked the water truck across the entrance to the track surface and we couldn't quite get our cars by.  We thought about pushing some of those earthmover tires out of the way with our front bumpers, then remembered we had already tried that LAST week at speed, and came out the worse for wear.  So we walked the track anyway just to get one lap in, and turned up Doug's deep dark personal secret as to why that track gets so torn up by the time we get there (and NO, it is NOT the other cars !), AND why he named his track "Bullwinkle's" Raceway.  From the proliferation of hoof prints on the surface, and their direction of travel, it became quite evident that Doug and his gang are secretly running MOOSE races in the dark every Friday night.  Imagine a 30 mph moose taking those tight turns at full speed, and you can easily visualize where the holes come from.  Looked like there was quite a pile-up 1/2 way down the back stretch (or perhaps there was something else going on that we really wouldn't want our kids to see.  Anyway, if any of you race fans spot a moose in that area carrying a flourescent number on their side, please get a photo, and  we will post it here - WHERE THE TRUTH COMES OUT!  By the way, if the rain refrains, and Doug's loader can remove any stray moose parts scattered about, Bullwinkle's is going to try to run STOCK CARS early in the afternoon on Sunday the 19th.  We won't make it back up for this rain date, but there is always next week.  In the meantime, please BELIEVE all the signs and lights on the highway warning of moose collisions, and be extra careful in turn #2.

June 11th - "Bullwinkle" and "Rocky" both insisted that the vintage cars attend today, so we made it happen.  No sign of that southern modified.  Some personal needs kept two of the regulars from the dirt this weekend.  We missed both Mike Denham's '36 Dodge "sedoupe" (04) and Mike Beland's 'new' '35 Chevy coach (8 Ball).  Mike Denham says he is looking for an inline Mopar to replace his 340 V-8 in the 04 car.

              
                             The Clark Brothers "match race was just that, lap after lap.

              
                                               Flathead and in-line - FLAT OUT !

             


For the first time EVER, brothers Rob and Ron Clark got to race against each other, and they gave no quarter.  The lead swapped several times as one would get out in the marbles, and there was a little crashing and banging here and there, but the right foot tended to be on the floor much of the time.  The '36 Chevy with it's 1948 GMC inline held up its end quite well, even though it was the first time on any race track for the 'green machine'.  Handling was not bad for the first time 'out of the box', and that old hi-torque 'Jimmy' could hang with that Flathead most anywhere on that track.  The Chevy definitely does a 4 wheel drift better than the Ford.  Rob later claimed that Ron had 'accidentally' left off one of the Ford's plug wires so that Rob only had 7 cylinders to work with.  Can you believe that?  Even if it did happen, it still gave him an extra cylinder - sometimes it is never enough.  Rob also advised us that it was all he could do NOT to pull up on the front stretch, jump out of the Ford, climb up on top, and bow to everyone; just because the GMC quit from a fuel line air leak about two laps from the end, and he (Rob) got to push it to the pit with the Ford.  The simplist things lift some people to a new high!


June 4th - Well, the Clark brothers failed in their effort to begin their racing season today.  The trip from Florida took 6 days instead of 3, due to several stops along the way; AND neither the '33 Ford nor the '"new" '36 Chevy were quite ready for racing.  The Ford suddenly asked for a tune-up; and we thought that shocks, windshield, seat belts, window net, and mounted tires might be good things to have on the Chevy.  So instead of racing on the rims and plowing up Doug's race course, we settled for working on the cars.

We understand that someone did have a southern dirt modified at Greenville, powered by a "hot" six cylinder.










                   
                          
 
                    

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