Crash diet

    Finally caught up with Paul, and he explained the bizarre finish to his first-round qualifying run (above) at Atlanta against Charles Terrell at the EOPM race. As the picture shows, Paul did his usual good job on the starting line. Not long after, he said the car started to haze the tires and went left. "I got out of the throttle, got it squared up and hit it again," Paul said, clearing the traps at 166 mph and a 4.50 et that was good enough for fourth.
     Atlanta has a half-mile shutdown, and Paul was letting the Beast coast on the chutes. Paul said he never saw Terrell and figured he had aborted the run. Terrell's et was a second slower than Paul's, and his trap speed was only 85. There is etiquette for the shutdown area: Paul said the faster car -- in this case, the Beast -- has the right of way. Rolling to a stop, Paul realized he was not going to make it all the way to the last turnoff, so he began easing to the left to indicate he was going to use an intermediate cutoff, about 250-300 feet closer. He was just across the center line, doing about 5 mph, when Terrell hit him going much faster. The header caught the Beast's front clip and did this --

   
    Needless to say, Paul was stunned. "I thought, 'How can he hit me?', Paul said. That led to a second-round qualifying attempt sans front bodywork, and has put racing on hold until August. It will take a couple of weeks to get the new front end from Larry Jeffers, and crew member Gregg Cash, owner of C&C Collision and Rod Shop in Cumming, Ga., will paint the new piece and fit it to the car. Though the car escaped chassis damage, Paul said there is one suspension piece he'll replace.
    Hard to find a silver lining in a costly, unexpected setback, but there is this one: The new front end should shave a good 20 pounds from the car. Paul said the old front end had sustained minor damage in a couple of incidents last year, and each repair has added weight, as the fiberglass needs a lot of reinforcing.
    Since the Memphis PDRA race in May, Paul said he has been trying to put the Beast on a bit of a diet. At Memphis, the car was about 90 pounds above the minimum. One other area of weight saving is expected to have a direct impact on the car's performance. Paul has been getting good video of every run this year, and has found that the wheelie bars aren't doing everything they are supposed to.
    Besides keeping the front end from rising 10 feet in the air, Paul said, the wheelie bars work with the rest of the chassis and suspension to help the car stand up on the tires -- one of the keys to big runs. The bars on the car are a two-piece design that is proving to be weak; the car isn't up on the tires until around 330 feet. Paul said that should happen in 100 feet. So the Beast is getting a new wheelie bar (just one) from Tim McAmis that will be stronger and probably 20 pounds lighter. Coupled with other random bits of weight saving, Paul said the Beast should be at least 50 pounds lighter for the next PDRA race. The Beast's bests -- a couple of 4.07s two or three years ago with a clutch setup -- came when the car was well over 2,600 pounds.
    The Beast's next race is up in the air at this point; it won't be this month's Scenic City Thunder event. Paul said he's still trying to make the series happen, but does plan to run any PDRA events that are close enough, plus a couple of no-screw-blower series in the Carolinas. The team didn't learn much about the new torque converter configuration, some data pointed in the right direction.
    So, no racing until August. Paul said the Farmer's Almanac is forecasting a cooler-than-normal August. If that is the case, Paul said they'll try to race as much as they can.