What a difference a year makes.
Yes, it has been nearly a year since the last Cuda Beast news. To sum up the largely missing 2018, it was virtually all testing and no racing. But with so much new about the car, particularly the engine and the need to get its much greater horsepower applied to the track, devotion to testing turned out to be a wise plan that is paying dividends.
Paul called me last week, just a few days after he and the Cuda Beast team went to Darlington Dragway for the season-opening event of the Carolina Xtreme Pro Mod series. It's a tough group, with big names such as Chris Rini, Rickie Smith, Tommy Mauney, Charles Carpenter, Jeremy Ray and Doug Winters, who would win the race. The races are 16 cars, a mix of nitrous and blowers (no screws), and a sub-4 pass is almost a requirement to make the field.
The team's testing included taking lots of video of the car to get a close understanding of what was happening on the starting line. Paul said the video revealed that the Beast was going left right at the hit. He bounced the information off leading chassis and parts builder Tim McAmis, who suggested more rear steer (one wheel is slightly ahead of the other). On the Beast, the passenger slick was an eighth of an inch ahead of the other one. McAmis suggested another one-eighth increase, plus some other changes to get the car to launch.
Paul made a few test runs at Darlington the day before the race, and was ready for the car to go left as he lined up for round one of qualifying on Saturday. Instead, it went dead straight, forcing Paul to pedal before finishing with a 4.02 -- the best run of the Beast's 12-year life. The previous bests were a pair of 4.07s at different races, with a different motor and a clutch instead of an automatic. Confident that they had the Beast dialed in, Paul and computer ace Keith Dockery punched in a stouter tuneup for Q2. They were rewarded with a 3.94 at 184 mph, good enough for the 12th spot in the field.
Paul said his first sub-4 pass was straight as an arrow and fast, so fast that he ran past the finish line, hitting about 240 before he popped the chutes as the quarter mile finish line approached. In this photo, the front bodywork where a repair had been made is distorted by the high speed.
Paul's first-round opponent would be pro mod legend Charles Carpenter, now running a Camaro instead of his famous '55 Chevy. Carpenter had also qualified at a career best of 3.77. Paul and Keith bulked up the tuning to a 3.79-3.82 range, and Paul was hoping to beat Carpenter on the line and steal a win. What the team didn't know was that the Q2 pass hurt the engine, and Paul managed only a 4.33 against Carpenter.
From his shop last week, Paul said he was busy repairing the engine and front body work to get the Beast ready for the next Carolina Xtreme race, April 20 at Union County Dragway in Union, S.C. Now that it looks like he has a handle on the car now, Paul is expecting more out of the Beast. The new engine ran a 3.86 for its previous owner, but Paul is confident it will exceed that, particularly thanks to the Fowler supercharger, which is delivering huge amounts of boost.
I'll try to have a preview of the Union race. If there is any live streaming, I'll let you know. Otherwise, CXPM is on Facebook and appears to do a decent job of race coverage. The Beast team is getting help from a couple of new companies this year -- Farrow Motorsports in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Motorsports Unlimited out of Ohio.
