Montgomery . . . ? (Yes) (No)

     5:30 p.m. Saturday UPDATE: Mother Nature strikes again during this racing season. Rain interrupted first round of qualifying. Stopped long enough to resume, then more rain, and the race was cancelled. Too bad. It's been a nice day here, 300 miles to the west.
     It's the second no-go for this SOT event. I don't know whether Paul tested Friday night or Saturday, but his first qualifying pass was an off-the-pace 6.25. Photo looked like he might have smoked the tires after launching. Looks like it will be Lassiter Mountain on July 3rd for another make-up race, for the Central Alabama Pro Mod Series. Sorry to say, but the weather looks iffy again.    

7:00 p.m. UPDATE: Just got Paul on the phone at Montgomery. Weather has cancelled a round of qualifying for tonight, but racers can test, and Paul is getting ready to make a pass. The team is shorthanded this week as Keith Dockery is out with injured ribs, but they will give it their best. The race is on for tomorrow -- 2 qualifying rounds and then eliminations. Will be a 16-car field if the car count is high enough.
    Last time I talked with Paul, he said the Cuda Beast team was planning to make this weekend's SOT race at Montgomery. However, I haven't been able to contact him the past couple of days, so I don't know if that's still the plan. There will be race info on the message board at www.promodifieds.us , so you can check there, as I'll be doing. The weather looks a bit iffy, but this is a makeup of an earlier race, so I'm betting that anything short of a monsoon, the race is on. The racers and promoters are eager to get things going, that's for sure.
    If I hear anything, I'll post it. Paul and the team also have a July 3 makeup event for the Central Alabama Pro Mod series. Haven't seen a points standing lately, but I'm guessing Paul is probably second. Hope there's lots of safe, fast racing this weekend.

Weekend update: Red-light blues

    Paul and the Cuda Beast team had a couple of one-and-dones this past weekend in the Central Alabama Pro Mod Series, red-lighting both times against Jimmy Sandefur, who went on to the finals in both races. Tim Segars won at Lassiter Mountain on Friday, and John Sullivan on Saturday at Holiday Beach. Haven't seen a points list, but Paul and Segars were tied for first going in; Segars should be on top alone after his win, even though he had mechanical problems the next night. No one was within two-tenths of him during eliminations.
    The team barely made the first round of qualifying at Lassiter after a fuel line came loose on a test run, causing the engine to lean out and blow a burst panel. Paul got an ovation from the crowd for a great save on his first qualifying run when the Beast got sideways at 450 feet. That run was 4.515, for fourth place. Round two improved to 4.477, and the first round red-light was a 4.41 that had Sandefur's 4.64 covered easily. An observed noted that the Beast seemed to have trouble staying in the starting beams. Paul said the trans brake was having difficulty holding the car, and that he most likely staged too deep, which led to the red-light. Next outing, the car will have line locks front and rear.
    Paul said Holiday Beach was pretty slick on the top end, but he still powered to a weekend best  of 4.33 in round two of qualifying, down from a 4.38. He said the Beast started hazing the tires about two-thirds of the way down, but he stayed in it all the way, to the crowd's delight. "It wasn't that big of a pass, but I got tired of lifting," he said. Though the red-light determined the first-round outcome, the Beast also lit the tires immediately into the run.
     The next race will be at Montgomery, a Southern Outlaw Tour event on June 29, followed on July 3 with a midweek makeup of a rained-out points race at Lassiter Mountain. Some new tires are on the way from Mickey Thompson, and the team continues to work with the fuel management system to help the car get through a tire-shake zone when it shifts into high gear, about 2.7 seconds into a run.
    Paul is also getting his Dart street car ready for its closeup at the drive-in in Blue Ridge, where filming is going on for "Need For Speed," a movie about a cross-country race based on a video game franchise.

The race is on (and so is the new website)

   After about a month of rainouts and other events, racing will resume this weekend with back-to-back shows at Lassiter Mountain on Friday night and Holiday Beach on Saturday (that's Paul staging the Cuda Beast in the lower left photo on the flier). Paul and the team are champing at the bit to leave the weekend in command of the series points battle, in which Paul and  three others are tied for first. Rain chances are about nil, but it will be hot.
   Last week's test of the new engine setup planned for Steele, Ala., didn't come off for a crazy bit of bad luck involving the new truck (a cleaning rag inside the turbo, if you can believe it). Damage was slight, and a $275 part has things as good as new.
   Best chance for race coverage will be www.promodifieds.us , even though Brian can't make the races. They will get info out some way. You can also check  www.promodracing.net for news. I'll pass along any news from Paul.
   Here's a shot of the steep shutdown area at Holiday Beach, where the Beast scraped its nose at the last race. It will ride a half-inch higher this time.

June 7: Testing

    Lots of stuff has happened/is happening since the last post, so let's get caught up:
    When we last checked in, the Cuda Beast team had loan of a dually from fellow racer David Elsberry, after Paul's red Dodge lost all its oil and blew up on I-20 last month. Since then, Paul decided to look for another truck, found one in St. Louis, and picked it up this week. It's a 2007 Dodge, with a bigger engine and stouter drivetrain. It's white, and makes for a visually longer rig when coupled to the white trailer. When Paul gets the engine fixed for the red truck, it will be for sale (contact us if you are interested).
    After last month's weather-related cancellations, the plan was to race this weekend at the Southern Outlaw Tour at Montgomery, but that race has been rescheduled. With the Central Alabama ProMod series resuming next weekend at Lassiter Mountain and Holiday Beach, and with a new untested engine setup in the car, Paul, the team and the new truck are headed to Alabama International Raceway in Steele, Ala., tomorrow for a test session. There's a big bracket meet going on, but testing will be allowed from noon to 6 p.m.
    Paul says Steele has tons of traction and the track will be well-prepped even though the event is not a full-out promod race. He hopes to get dialed in there, and then see if Lassiter Mountain will hold that setup; if not, they'll back it off until it does. Paul and the Cuda Beast team are tied for first in the Central Alabama series points after one race.
   

May 16: There will be racing (just not this weekend)

         Talked with Paul on Wednesday, and he was in the trailer working on the Cuda Beast, with plans to race at Huntsville's Rocket City Nationals this weekend. While his tow dually is under repair after blowing its engine on the way home from the rainout at Holiday Beach, pro mod racer David Elsberry has given the team use of a dually so they can keep racing while Paul's diesel Dodge gets fixed. Elsberry's dually got the car and trailer back home last weekend when Paul was stranded on the side of Interstate 20. Racer Terry Priest helped get the stricken truck off the highway. That's the racing community for you.
    The racing schedule is stuffed this weekend; promods will run at Montgomery as well. Huntsville is having separate 8-car fields for blowers and nitrous. (Friday AM update: No separate fields. One, with 8 cars). There will be testing Friday afternoon and a round of qualifying Friday night. Saturday will have qualifying rounds in the morning and early afternoon, with eliminations scheduled to start at 3 p.m. The team likely would not have raced this weekend had last week's Central Alabama series at Lassiter Mountain and Holiday Beach not been cancelled. They will be shorthanded this weekend, but the car's loaded and ready to go. Once again, the weather looks really iffy.
    Saturday night update: Looking at a short crew, an unfavorable weather forecast, and still being worn out from the previous weekend's events, Paul decided to stay home this weekend. The schedule now looks like Montgomery the first weekend in June, followed next weekend by the resumption of the Central Alabama series at Lassiter Mountain and Holiday Beach.
    

May 15: Unbelievable . . .

    If last weekend's race rainouts weren't bad enough for Paul Gibbs and the Cuda Beast team, there was this post afterward from team member Keith Dockery:

     "Well, seems like some times when it rains, it pours. Holiday turned out not good at all for the Cuda team. Thought all would be well when we only lost a battery charger that was left outside in the first of the rain showers. But on the way home, Paul ended up with some major issues, lost all the oil in the dually engine and was stuck on the side of I-20. Finally got a trailer and tow vehicle recovered to a mall parking lot around 4 a.m. this (Sunday) morning.
     "When  things go south, the race community seems to always pull together to assist wherever we can. We cannot thank everyone enough for all the support, especially to Terry Priest, who came with a rollback and recovered the broken Dodge dually for repairs, and will assist in those also. More thanks to the team to David Elsberry for the loan of another dually to get the trailer and car home to Blue Ridge so Paul can start the cleanup of all the oil all over the trailer. Hope that the white trailer just makes all that oil look worse than it is.
    "Once again, many, many thanks to Terry and David for the assistance from the entire Cuda Beast team. Good folks always pull together in the bad times as well as the good."

     Yes, thanks to Terry Priest and David Elsberry and everyone else who offered help. Such generosity of time and effort occurs at pretty much every race, at and away from the track.
     I haven't been able to talk to Paul, but I'm sure he has a lot more important stuff to take care of. It was bad enough to get psyched up for a weekend of racing, only to have them cancelled, but this jolt of misfortune is simply unbelievable.

May 11: Weekend update -- Cancellation No. 2

    Tough call on Friday's race at Lassiter Mountain. It was on Thursday night, then cancelled Friday around noon. Later Friday night, blue skies were overhead. I'm a couple hundred miles west of Birmingham, and I would have bet on rain for sure, based on what we got. Anyway, it has been rescheduled for July 3.
   Don't know if Paul got the word in time to delay his trip, but he and the Cuda Beast team are at Holiday Beach now, getting ready to roll. A treat for this race: Brian C. of www.promodifieds.us is on hand, and will be providing his usual top-notch race coverage, so check the message board at the site, and look for Holiday Beach results. Photos, times and observations will all be there. Another site to check out is www.promodracing.net Let's hope Mother Nature smiles on the Beach, and that everyone is fast and safe today.
   LATER SATURDAY: Mother Nature sent wave after wave of showers across Holiday Beach, including one final downpour just after the track's personnel had dried everything out for maybe the second time that day. So the race was cancelled, and I don't think Paul and the Beast got to run. They have reset for June 15. Don't know what the next race might be, but Huntsville's Rocket City Nationals is next weekend.

May 7: Tied for first

It's race 2 of the Central Alabama Pro-Mod Series this weekend, and Paul Gibbs and the Cuda Beast team hope to build on their strong showing in the first races that has them tied for the series points lead. The race format is Friday night at Lassiter Mountain, near Birmingham, and Saturday night at Holiday Beach at Woodstock, Ala.
   Over the past four weeks, Paul has been through the engine and transmission -- in fact, as this is written, they are likely in the process of reinstalling the motor -- "a long night," Paul said this morning -- with hopes of firing it up on Wednesday (Update 5/8: Engine fired, all looks good, Paul advises). The engine has new rods that are slightly longer, boosting compression to about 12.3, for more power.  This is the second year Paul has run a torque converter by PTC of Muscle Shoals, Ala. With more data from more solid, full-out passes, PTC will help to fine-tune the converter for consistent runs. One other new toy to play with is a Lahey fuel management system.
    Mickey Thompson is again supplying the tires this year. Paul's current specs are 17x34.5, but M/T wants him to try a new tire that is 15x35, one that some other teams are having success with.
    The body is getting some attention, too, as Paul scraped the front end entering the inclined shutoff area at Holiday Beach. Gregg Cash, of C&C Collision and Rod Shop in Cumming, Ga., has everything looking good as new, and is also a new team/member and sponsor. He'll be with the team at the tracks this weekend. The Beast will ride a half-inch higher up front at both tracks this weekend to try to avoid further scrapes.
     Last month, Paul missed going to Victory Lane by just a few hundredths on a red light at Holiday Beach, that after a long couple of days of racing and thrashing the car. The Beast will be primed and ready to go all the way this weekend. The weather forecast looks iffy right now because of the likelihood of rain, but here's hoping Mother Nature cooperates.  

April 7: First final

  Upon being congratulated for making his first promod final, Paul Gibbs replied: "I gave it away. I must have rolled deep into the lights." A red light did cost Paul and the Cuda Beast team their first event victory, Saturday night at Holiday Beach, but the race seems to have marked a turning point after for them.
    The weekend was a testament to the hard work of the Beast team -- Paul, Karen, Keith, and Louise, and two new guys, Wesley Walker and Michael Black from just down the road in Blue Ridge who have been welcome hands around the shop -- and not giving up.
    The two races -- Friday at Lassiter Mountain and Saturday at the Beach, to open the Central Alabama Promod Series -- were polar opposites. At Lassiter, the Beast never got down the track, in large part because of a malfunctioning timing computer. They lost in the semis after a first-round bye, and thrashed the car until 4 a.m. to fix the computer problem.
    Arriving at Holiday Beach, they pulled the transmission to try to find out why the Beast wouldn't stay in reverse (for each race, Paul had to hold it in gear with the shift lever). With timing computer fixed, Paul laid down a 4.26 to qualify fourth. He said  that was his only straight-as-a-string run; for all the others, the car was all over the place on a slick track, and he was constantly in and out of the throttle.
     Tim Segars, the winner at Lassiter, was again top qualifier and looked to sweep the races, but his 4.39, the quickest in the first round, lost to Bil Clanton's 4.40. Paul won with a 4.48 to set up the race pictured above. Paul beat Bil Clanton for the first time, 4.54 to 5.42, a pedal-fest for both drivers. Paul was particularly proud of that race, citing Clanton as one of the toughest racers to beat (and also good folks, as Bil and Ralph Clanton were among the people who helped the team sort out the transmission Saturday).
    That set up the final between Paul and Kenny Scott, who had qualified with a 4.47. Based on ETs to that point, Paul had Scott covered, but the red light negated the Beast's 4.35, while Scott ran a 5.27.
      Both tracks were new to the team. Holiday Beach has an incline at the end, and the Beast was scraping the front spoiler as it crossed the finish line and entered the shutoff area. Paul said he'll probably raise the ride height a half-inch or so next time. At Lassiter, Paul said he'd like to have more light.
     The next outing for the Beast will be May 10-11, back to Lassiter and the Beach for the second event of the Central Alabama series. There's a points program, and Paul should be at or near the top. The tracks should be well raced-in by then, and the weather warmer. Paul is passing up a race at Huntsville to put some new rods in the engine, and also a reverse gear.

April 6: Lassiter Mountain update

   Talked with Paul a bit ago. The team was unloading at Holiday Beach, on about 3 1/2 hours of sleep after a long, frustrating day at Lassiter Mountain. Problems with the timing computer kept them from making a full pass all night -- the Beast blew the tires on every run -- and the car kept wanting to jump out of reverse.
   Paul hopes the computer problem is just a wiring glitch, and the team was preparing to pull the transmission to try to get at the bottom of the reverse gremlin. The winner at Lassiter Mountain, Tim Segars, uses a clutch, and so was able to slip it to help get down a cold track. He beat Paul in the semis.

April 4: New tracks, new series

  Racing for real kicks off this weekend as the Central Alabama Promod Series opens its schedule -- consecutive days starting at Lassiter Mountain on Fridays, and Holiday Beach on Saturdays. Both tracks are new to Paul and the Cuda Beast team, but they are excited by the points program that will yield a season-end payout to the winner.
    Paul has been fighting a cold/flu bug for several days, but figures to be ready to go Friday night. The engine has been thoroughly gone over since Montgomery's SOT event last month, where the Beast ran a 4.36 as the team continued to dial in the automatic transmission setup.
    The weather looks to be a bit challenging for Lassiter Mountain, but a beautiful day is predicted for Saturday, when the racing moves to Holiday Beach. By the end of last season, 3.90s were getting it done at both tracks, so the racing should be fast and competitive. Here are looks at both tracks from last year, by the fantastic Brian C of promodifieds.us.

March 23: SOT weekend report

    Going into last weekend's Southern Outlaw Tour event at Montgomery Motorsports Park, Paul Gibbs said he was viewing the event primarily as test session to get ready for the Central Alabama pro-mod series he will run this year -- but if he made the SOT field, great.
      The Beast was on the bubble after two rounds of qualifying with a 4.36, and couldn't improve on that and was bumped from the field. The team is still chasing the setup with the new automatic transmission, but was happy to see that the transmission leaks that were common last year have now been stopped. Also, the car's "lazy" 60-foot times indicated the engine was too lean, Paul said.
     The Central Alabama series involves racing at two tracks -- Lassiter Mountain and Woodstock -- on consecutive days, and starts April 5.

March 10: Cuda Beast ready for 2013 season

Paul Gibbs describes his 2012 pro-mod season as the worst he's ever had. A spate of engine problems and a couple of mishaps over just four races or so, all while trying to dial in a new automatic transmission setup for the Cuda Beast.
     But that was then, this is now. Paul and the rest of the team are ready to race at Montgomery next weekend, and pursue a busy race schedule in a new series based in Alabama. Paul says the Montgomery race, a Southern Outlaw Tour event, will be more like a test and tune session to see if the new gear ratio changes will keep the Mickey Thompsons planted on the asphalt.
     Paul isn't planning to run the SOT this year, opting for a series that will run back-to-back races -- Fridays at the legendary Lassiter Mountain track and Saturdays at Holiday Raceway in Woodstock. That series already has five weekends on the calendar -- April through August -- and Paul also plans to run events at Huntsville, a track where the Beast has turned some of its best times.
    The SOT has acquired some new sponsorship and has boosted purses, enough so that a lot of cars that hang out in ADRL will be tempted to take on the SOT. Paul said he guesses the bump at MMP could be well into the 3.80s for 16 cars, and he's really not expecting to be one of them -- but great, should it happen.  The tracks on the new central Alabama series are smaller, and cannot handle the speeds the high-buck ADRL racers are capable of.  A 3.9 is about the limit, and Paul is happy shooting for that. Still, the competition will be tough.
     It has been a long, tiring winter for Paul to get the car refurbished. He was laying some paint on the Beast today, and hopes to have it in the trailer and ready to roll by midweek. There's a practice period and one round of qualifying on Friday, and two more rounds of qualifying Saturday, with races set to begin at 7 p.m. As in past seasons, when this site was doublehdragstrip(dot)com, we'll have pre-and postrace coverage of the Cuda Beast team. For race day, your best source is the bulletin board at  www.promodifieds.us , with the fantastic Brian C. providing coverage that is the next best thing to being there.