I was starting to wonder if we were ever going to get to race this year!!! Seems like the rain will not stop. This is week number 4 on the schedule, but only week number one at the track.

Well over the winter, one of the changes I decided to make was to switch from race gas to E85 fuel. If you are not familiar with E-85, it is basically a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gas. That is the base mix, but it does vary a little through out the year, but I won't go into specifics and bore you with useless information.

There were two major reasons why I decided to make the switch. First, cost. Since my team motto is "No Budget Racing", paying $2.75 per gallon of E85 is much easier on my very skinny wallet than about $6.50 per gallon of race gas. The second reason is based on reducing weight in the car. E-85 is supposed to make a race motor run about 15-20 degrees cooler than running on gas. With than in mind, I was able to get rid of my sprayer system for the radiator. That cut about 30 pounds out of the car. If you are not familiar with a sprayer system for our race cars, I had an agricultural water pump mounted in the back of my car, with a gas can filled with water. Hoses from the pump run up to some spray nozzles mounted in front of the radiator. During the races, if the car is overheating, I can flip a switch and have that water spray the radiator and cool down the motor by 20-30 degrees in a matter of a minute or less.

I sent my carb up to a guy in Minnesota that converted one of my gas carbs to be able to run E85. Other than changing the jets, he also made some other modifications to make it run with the E85, but I have no idea what they were. I know very little about carbs, thus the reason of having someone else take care of that for me.

Up to this point, I have been having troubles with the carb loading up while testing it in the garage, but was assured that this carb was built to run at high RPM's and not to worry too much about it loading up while idling. I started in the second heat race on the outside of row 2. Putting around the track on the parade lap, the car started to load up and was not running right, but I was hoping for the best once it got up to speed.

Green Flag!!! The car did not want to get up to speed. It was not running right and would not clear itself up. I tried everything I could to get the motor to clear out or at least run well enough to finish the race and qualify for the A feature. Full throttle, half throttle, pumping the gas...nothing helped. I finished the race watching rear bumpers getting smaller and smaller in front of me. On to the "B".

After the heat race, with the help of Brain Heiman, we did a plug check and found that the motor was running very rich. That means more gas is being pumped into the motor than it needs or can even use. After consulting "those that know", we decided to drop the jets 4 sizes and see what happens. I also adjusted the float in the carb, just to make sure that there was enough fuel entering the bowl. Oh, and I also put new and hotter spark plugs in the motor to help burn all that E85. I started the car and it seemed to run fine in the pits.

I got in line for the B feature and had to sit there for an extra few minutes while the previous race finished up. During that time, the motor started loading up again and running like crap. I was hoping that it would clear out on the track. During the parade laps, I was able to clear out the motor and it seemed to run fine when I got on it. Cross your fingers!

Green, Green, Green! Push the pedal to the floor and pththththththth. Running like crap again! Once again I tried everything I could to get it to run and nothing helped. I held on for as long as I could, but the race got to a point where I was pretty much out of a qualifying position to transfer to the "A", so with 3 laps remaining, I just pulled it off the track rather than risk hurting the motor. At this point, I wasn't sure why the motor would not run right, so I just played it safe considering I don't have any cash to spare if the motor breaks. As I found out later, I did finish 11th in the "B", so I did transfer to the "A", but I thought I was further back than that, so I just called it a night.

I finished the night up in the stands watching the features with my wife Pam, my son Brandon and my nephew Marcus. As it turns out, it may not have been a bad thing to miss that first "A" feature. The race started with 17 cars and finished with 5!!! I may have saved myself a lot of cash and headaches by not being on the track for that one!

Back to the garage and try to figure out my motor problems and try it again next week.