The Road to Nitro

The Road to Nitro

Who? Me at 60

What? Yep, switching to the Nitro AA/FA 6.0 class

When: One week at a time, hopefully 2018 sometime

Where? Wherever Nitro is allowed! Bakersfield, Boise, Sacramento?

Why? Because it is Nitro!

How? That is the question I will answer one week at a time in this blog

So I was this happy little camper running the 7.0 Pro class and it was allot of fun. Then I get to the finals at Bakersfield March Meet and get runner-up. I get my check and I won a whopping $450.00, whew! My crew spent more than that getting in! Then to add insult to injury I find out that NE-1 which is a slower class gets twice as much for runner-up!

 Now…., not that I run for the money, but really now, when I don’t even get back my entry fees for getting 2^nd place then I guess I am just stupid. So I thought about going back to the 7.60 class but it is that old adage, you can never go backwards.

So I talked it over with Lisa, Les and Cliff and here we are! A weekly blog of how I am going to switch to the Nitro AA/FA class. It might be a long process as I don’t really know which way this thing is going to go, but I have a general idea.

First things first, sell the car I have now. Well at least the parts that I won’t run in AA/FA so I can buy a 426 Hemi. Yes I toyed a bit dreaming about making a Ford engine run nitro but I just don’t have the funds to do it. There are plenty of used 426 parts out there as the throw away Top Fuel stuff can still be run in the lower classes.

 I will sell the car but I am not going to give it away. I don’t want to chop it up to make it shorter for the Nostalgia AA/FA class but I will if I have to. The car is such a nice car for NE-1 or 7.0 Pro I hate to do that so we shall see. Stay tuned, I am in no hurry.

Every week I will put up a short blog about my thoughts and what I want to run.

The car, engine and trans are up for sale on different sites right now.

Stay tuned!

   

Race report for ANRA 6-21-14 at Bakersfield

 Bryan raced his car at this race and Kelley, Don and Mark were the crew. Winslow couldn’t make it but as always he helps buy gas to get to and from the track and I can tell you that is so very much appreciated. If it wasn’t for our family and with friends like Winslow, Les Stripe and Ron Whitman I don’t know if we would be running right now.  Mark was unable to race because Cliff was racing his car in Sacramento and is the main crew member for the red altered and Lisa is holding down the Fort with the social media and is working on our website. Look for a Hall Bros Speed Shop site soon!

 The race was in Bakersfield at Famoso Raceway. This is the track that holds the big March Meet and the Hot Rod Reunion. ANRA (American Nostalgia Racing Association) is an association that has been around for some time with several owners. It is now run by Butch Headrick and he is doing a great job. They hold a 4 races series for sportsman racers only. Our class NE-1 and AGas are the fastest classes at the 7.60 index. The last time the Hall Bros raced with ANRA was back in 1996 with the old Blue altered.

 We drove down Hwy 5 to get to the race track and crossed over to 99 by going through Wasco and I am so glad we did for two reasons that I will get to in a minute. The first reason is that hwy 99 is all jacked up and will ruin a car with all that bouncing. The second reason you will have to wait a bit. Let’s just call it Jolly treat #1.

 We got to the track around 8 pm on Friday night and the ANRA guys are still there and didn’t close the gate until 9:30! Now that beats the heck out of the other guys that put on races. You can’t get in much after 6 pm like everyone can take off multiple days to get to a race!  ANRA also tech’d cars in until 9:30…… are you kidding me! NHRA Heritage needs to take note! No wonder ANRA gets 300 sportsman cars!

 So we get all set up and get our cots ready. Yes we are sleeping on cots and it was so hot that some of us decided to sleep outside.

 Saturday morning the sun comes up and it is 6 am and it is hot! Not looking forward to this. By the way, on Friday the A/C decides to give us trouble and we roast on the way to the track.

 Saturday morning we get all tech'd in and we are ready for first round of two qualifying runs. The air is bad but we needed to see where we were so we ran it with no changes from previous race where it ran 7.61. The first pass it goes 7.79 which is nowhere close to the 7.60 index. For the second run we decided to bump the timing from 24 degrees to 30 degrees and hopefully put it in to the 7.60s somewhere. On the second run it goes 7.79 again! Darn it! The timing did not help the Hemi at all. On Marks BBC timing makes huge gains but the hemi combustion chamber does not like timing. So there we sit kind of lost for what to do for first round of eliminations on Sunday.

 Side note #1

 Kelley heard from Jim that Brooklyn was watching on Live Stream and she was nervous when her mom (Kelley) was out on the track. The announcers normally talk about the "BUGS" (Back up girls) and this announcer said that Kelley was a "BUB" which I have never heard before. "BUB" = (Back up babe!) A trend has begun.   

 Side note #2

 Between round one and round two of qualifying Mark had to run into town to get a tire pressure gauge as ours was in Bryan's other race car. We also got some new spark plugs to see where the jetting was. Our ice chests had already melted the ice so that was on the order also. So while Mark was in town he gets himself Yummy treat #2. After qualifying on Saturday night we all decide a ride in the truck with the A/C on would be a good way to kill time until it cooled down outside. Guess where we went? Yummy treat #3. More on that later! Yes it is hot! Check out how cool Bryan looks! (aka: "Stone Cold Bryan Hall")

 For Sundays eliminations we decide to put a tune up in that Bryan had run 7.50 with at a previous Bakersfield race when the air was much better. We also decided to leave it a bit richer and figured that the bad air and the richer main jet should slow it down to the 7.60s somewhere. 

The 7.79 put us at #15 out of 24 cars and put us against the #3 qualifier who was last races winner and is leading the points. Just can’t catch a break! Bryan is up for the challenge and cuts an awesome .009 light to the opponents .020 light so Bryan had the advantage. The car ran a 7.55 to his 7.56 so we got the loss. Bryan crossed the finish line first 4’4” ahead of the other guy as the margin was .014 seconds. But since Bryan ran the faster time under the 7.60 index that gave the win to the opponent.

 All in all the car is running great. The pushrod problem is fixed and this car is poised to doing some winning. We did switch to Lucas Special 50 oil which has a bunch more ZDDP which is anti-wear additive Zinc and Prosperous. Most racing oils have 1200 ppm but Lucas has 3200 ppm. Much better and the oil is the same price as others. We have always been Valvoline guys but we are now Lucas guys. No wonder they are everywhere!

 So where do we go on the way home? Yes we go for yummy treat #4 and where is this marvelous place and what the heck are they selling? If any of you have ever cranked an ice cream maker you know what the delicious taste is. Yes, home-made ice cream! Well we found a little joint called Jolly Cone and their cones have what tasted exactly like homemade! So if we are going to name this tour it would be the Jolly Kone tour! If you are ever traveling on Hwy 46 which connects Hwy 5 to 99 and you are in the town of Wasco I suggest you stop in at the Jolly Kone!

     
Look for the Hall Bros at the Fox Hunt at Sacramento Raceway on Aug 1-2^nd.

Bryan will be running AGas and Mark will be running 7.0 Pro. 

Blown Gas Enderle Injected 454 at UTI

This is a Blown Gas 454 that I built a test stand for and is taken to high schools and started. Ron Whitman and I work at Universal Technical Institute and Ron wanted something exciting to show the kids while giving his presentation for UTI. There is nothing better than a Supercharged Blown Gas Big Block except for maybe a Blown Nitro Big Block. This thing rock and rolls real good and it is loud. When I was building the test stand for Ron he found a ready to go 454 at Rex Hutchinson’s and I took the carbs off and put a Enderle Bird Catcher on it. I finished the stand and engine in early 2011 and he took it to many shows and high schools. Ron says he always gets the principal out of his office when he starts it! About the end of 2011 the engine started vibrating real bad. Come to find out Hutchinson put it together with only one keyway on the crank. We didn’t even race it and it spun the keyway starting it on the test stand! I had to take the crankshaft out with the hub still connected and had to cut the hub with a carbide wheel. $1300.00 later it is fixed correctly and runs better than ever.  I wish people would just do the work correctly the first time. I would have built the engine for him but time was of essence. Recently Ron decided to build a bigger engine and I said, “Hey, instead of putting it in the test stand, let’s just put it in my race car and you can take that to the shows and high schools and maybe we can race it in between”. He said that sounded good to him and we now have a 540 that we bought in Oregon that was supposed to be “turn key”…now that’s another story! Check out the video of the engine running at UTI campus!

Hall Bros. Racing 3rd Generation

Hall Bros. Racing is back!
The 3rd Generation (our son Bryan) is now racing his '32 Bantam Roadster.

More info coming soon...I'm new to this blogger thing...still trying to figure it all out.