The race is on

        Yes, it's the PDRA World Finals, and it's this weekend at Virginia Motorsports Park, near Petersburg. It's a long haul for Paul and the Beast, and the team will be heading out Thursday. There will be three qualifying rounds Friday and one more Saturday morning, four shots to try to get the new drivetrain dialed in..
       As this is a PDRA event, it will be live-streamed so you can watch the action wherever you are.Paul's class, Pro Boost, is scheduled to follow Outlaw 10.5, so if you tune in and see Outlaw 10.5 cars running, you'll know the Beast will be up soon. The message board at www.promodifieds.usually has the links to the streaming and to Drag Race Central, which breaks down each round of qualifying. 
      Paul is excited to hit the track again, as his new engine makes the Beast an entirely different animal. Paul had to come up with a work-around to get the car to start, as his starter couldn't crank the new engine because of its higher compression.
     Paul had planned to race last weekend at Darlington, S.C., in the Carolina Xtreme Pro Mods series, but ran out of time. He said the crew finished everything on the car about two hours before they would have to leave for the track. Everyone was already worn out at that point, so Paul decided to stay home.
    There is potentially one more race before the season ends, at Shadyside in November.
    Check the promodifieds.us message board for links to race coverage. I've had pretty good luck catching the Beast on live streaming. Be fast and safe, everyone.

Idle this weekend

  
   If you have followed this race this past weekend, you know that Paul and the Beast weren't on hand.
Paul said a combination of too much construction work and not enough time to get the car fully ready  -- plus the 11-hour drive down there -- persuaded him to keep the Beast parked.
    However, the new engine and refurbished transmission are in the car, and he's close to being able to fire it up. Though the season is winding down, big races remain on the calendar  -- all at place where Paul has run.
First is the Southern Shootout series finale at Montgomery in two weeks, followed by the PDRA finals in Virginia and another race in the Carolinas, that I think is at Shadyside.
     We'll have an update closer to the Montgomery race.

Racing day weekend

   This Labor Day weekend, Paul and the Beast team will return to Shadyside Dragway in North Carolina for another Carolina Xtreme Pro Mod event. Paul was there back on Memorial Day weekend, his first time there, and liked the quirky track.

 

   It's the first outing for the car in a while, though they did go to the CXPM race at Farmington, N.C., last month, but didn't arrive in time to try to qualify.  This will be the first race with a magneto in the car that is working, which should mean that tuning changes will occur and show up on the track.
    There will be two rounds of qualifying on Sunday, and a couple more on Monday before the racing. It's a quick 8 field, and this series is home to lots of fast cars. Check the message board at promodifieds.us for updates or links to the action. I'm hoping to find a live stream somewhere. I'll link it if I do.
    Fast and safe racing for all.

Shadyside spark

        It was a lonnnnnng Memorial Day weekend at Shadyside, thanks to the weather, but the trip proved to be a useful one even though the Beast didn't make the field, qualifying 13th out of 20 or so cars with a 4.32. The big discovery, Paul said, was that the magneto was faulty, which means all the tuneup adjustments basically "never made any difference" because it wasn't firing correctly.
     Paul said he suspects the problem may have begun while the car still ran a clutch, and when it ran its best times. Since the switch to the automatic, the Beast has come within about a tenth of its best clutch performances, and has been wildly inconsistent. "You could have a good run, but it wouldn't repeat," Paul said.
   So, the magneto was sent back to MSD for a thorough refurb, is recertified and back in the car. Confident now that any tuneup changes will be reflected on the track, Paul said he's going back to the fast tuneups when the car had a clutch for his new baseline.  The first chance to run again could be July 9-10 at Huntsville at a Southern Outlaw Tour event. Paul sees it as a test session, since the SOT is a screw-blower series. If the weather isn't too hot, he said, the Beast likely will be there.
    As for the quirky Shadyside track, Paul said the racing surface was great, an uphill shutdown area a la Holiday Beach, and even the hairpin at the end wasn't a problem.

   He said there was plenty of stopping room, but you had to get on the chutes "real quick. If your chutes failed, you'd be in trouble." The difficulty came at the other end of the track, Paul said, as the car had to be pushed back and forth to get it into the staging /burnout area. He couldn't fire the car and pull right into staging  But he likes the series, so it's likely the Beast will be back at Shadyside, and at other tracks in the Carolinas.
   We'll update closer to the Huntsville race.

Keep on the Shadyside

  
    Paul and the Cuda Beast team will be at Shadyside Dragway in Shelby, N.C., which has to be in the running for the most primitive/throwback track in the South, if not the nation. It's hard to believe that fans are this close to the track, where such high-powered machines as promods are running.

     It's not quite the 1960s at famous Southern outlaw tracks such as Paradise Drag Strip in Calhoun, Ga.,

but it's comparable. And the promods can run big numbers at Shadyside, before heading up the hill and turning left through the trees.

    Amazing, and there is a lot of video online (the source of  these images) that is riveting to watch.
So, about the race. It's an eight-car all-run field, no screw blowers, 2,500 pound weight limit -- what Paul said are basically PDRA rules for its pro boost class. Testing is Saturday -- Paul, who has never run at Shadyside, said he hopes to get in a couple of passes then -- followed by three qualifying rounds on Sunday, one more qualifier on Monday, and then eliminations. Keith Dockery  will be along for the race to run the computer, and Paul will also have a former promod tuner who has run 3.9s with a setup almost identical to the Beast's on hand.
    Should be great. There will probably be some info on the message board at promodifieds.us, along with info on the slew of other promod races slated for the holiday weekend. Hope it's a fast, safe weekend for everyone.