Les

For the last few years I've been lucky enough to get invited to play at the local Father's Day event at our airport. This year the invite came very late, leading to a mad thrash to get the '69 Vette ready to race. However, as always, it was well worth the effort.

This year, for the first time, we had drag races instead of car vs. airplane races- and I hope they keep it that way for the future!

We did practice runs on Thursday and Friday- solo passes for the most part, with about 8-10 cars taking part. Saturday my race was against a buddy's clean smallblock '70 Camaro. He's running the biggest Comp cams Mega Thumper roller, AFR 210 heads, 4.10 gears, a TH350 with 3500 stall converter, and MT drag radials. He had been having trouble hooking up but on this run he did hook well and got a nice holeshot on me. Unlike last year, I couldn't hook all weekend- after about 3.5 years my MT drag radials are shot. The first video shows that race, as recorded by my wife.

My Sunday race was against a '56 Chevy gasser with a 468" bigblock, dual quad tunnel ram, TH400, 4.56 gears, and open headers. Again, I didn't hook at all and he got a huge holeshot on me. The second video shows that race as recorded by my son, and the third video is my GoPro view of the same race. FYI, the GoPro app for uploading to Youtube was absolutely miserable to work with or I would have posted the video days ago.

Anyway, the old '69 served me well and I had a blast!

ex9850

Great to see a corvette drag racing. Not enough on here about drag racing.

ajrothm

Hell yeah man! The 69' 427 put'n work!

Way to represent!

OMF

Looks like alot of fun, and your car really seems to pull on the top end!! What do you have done to your engine?
Where was the end of the dragstrip in relation to the taxiway?

jim in oregon

Thanks for the videos..even not getting out of the hole well your vette did really good down the strip..Pretty cool to watch..Jim

ddawson

Nice, were do they do that at?

jim in oregon

Here's a great song..Jim

gkull

Next time you have an even give me a few days notice and I will drive over!

Les

I appreciate the comments guys. Today has been busy or I would have gotten back sooner. One of our local Corvette guys threw a nice little party.

Regarding my videos, I learned something today. The 3rd video now requires you to go to Youtube to watch it. Interesting because I didn't do that. That's the one that went through GoPro, so I guess they have an arrangement with Youtube. Not a big deal, just interesting. The others are also available in full size if you click the Youtube emblem.

Thanks. Most of the relevant details on my car are in my sig. If you have any other questions I'll be happy to answer them. I try to shift just before my rev limiter setting of 6500 RPMs. I'll have fresh tires next year . Another gasser, '57 Chevy with a gnarly smallblock and nitrous wants to run me. Very guy. Next year I'm in.

The car was weak off the line- when it hooks it leaves pretty hard. Nothing like some of the big boys here though, like ajrothm.

The finish line was somewhere around that taxiway but we were never sure exactly where. That was where they measured roughly for the 1/4 mile. Everybody pretty much ran through that anyway since there's plenty of runway. I pull 130-135 MPH before I shut down. The gasser driver said he saw me coming hard. He shut down as I was going by. I think he was out of RPMs with those 4.56s out back.

Les

George, the actual event is on both days of the Father's Day weekend. It's a lot of fun but the wait between runs can seem long since they squeeze other activities in between. As a driver, the most fun is during "qualification" runs on Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, I have no control over who gets invited inside the gate. I'm just happy to be on the short list.

427Hotrod

Love it! That 'li 427 is rockin' on the big end! 11.30's at 120 mph is strong!

Thanks for posting!

JIM

ajrothm

So that airport run is 1/4 or longer?

If you are hitting 135, I suspect it's 1500' or so?

Looks like a fun event. Glad to see other classic Vette owners out there using (/racing) their cars instead of just sitting in parking lots with them..

BKbroiler

Hey Les, nice vids. Looks and sounds like your car is running good. Its always fun to get out there and burn some rubber.

Les

Thanks Jim. It's always nice to have you show up in any thread.
Alan, it's designed to be a 1/4 mile pass but I always run well beyond that because....well, because I can. Where else am I going to run it like that- and the crowd loves it. The organizers have gotten to know me and they trust I won't run too far down and get into a problem getting stopped.
Thanks Bruce. My tires are shot now. After trying different types of burnouts and not hooking at all on my runs, I called MT- because a year ago I dead hooked at 17 PSI after a burnout at the same airport and same temps. Their tech said they're good for maybe 2-3 years and mine are at 3.5 years....and there's so little tread left now that they probably aren't street legal. Time to spend some $$$

L Holmes

I love this. Great job.

Les

ajrothm

Time for some 275 Pros for the track/air port events...

Just watched your vids, you blew the tires off all the way through 1st and still stayed ahead...

Awesome car!

Les

Much appreciated Alan. Just today Summit was nice enough to sell me 2 new ET Street S/S tires. They must love me there. Is it a bad thing that I know their phone # by heart? I stayed with 255/60/15s because I like the way the car sits with that size in the back and the gearing is the way I like it. They arrive tomorrow.

69ttop502

Les, that is awesome, and that's a flyin' . Nice to see you using it like it's meant to. Thanks for posting that!

Les

Thanks bud.