Getting ready for 2011 season

We started around the first week in October tearing down the legend to paint and change a few things. We removed the body and all of the inside sheet metal with the exception of the floor. Connelly sanded down the entire chassis, roll cage, all of the tins and anything else that didn't move. He then primed and painted everything two coats of grey on chassis and roll cage. The tins he did in flat black. We had the body painted by Terry at Manhattan Collision center in Harvey, La. He did a fantastic job. We then replaced all of the nuts and bolts for all of the trailing arms and suspension parts. We then installed a new Richardson full containment seat complete with wrap around headrest. Then added a new set of Simpson seat belts before replacing all of the repainted sheet metal. Next the fuel tank went back in followed by the body, fenders, hood, grille and graphics. We had the graphics done by A.J. Fulgenzi of Victory Graphics out of Florida, www.victorygraphicsusa.com. We finished off the rebuild with a new set of tires on chrome rims. I am proud to report that Connelly did 90% of the work by himself, with some supervision and help by me. I think he did a fantastic job. The proof is in the pudding, or in this case the outcome of the job.

This past Saturday Feb. 12th, 2011 was open test day at Sunny South Raceway. Joe McArdle (the track manager) reported that we had 27 cars participate. We arrived around 10:30 went through safety tech and scaled the car, after adding 17 pounds of lead, the weight of the paint, new seat the car scaled almost perfect. With a full load of fuel we weighed 1324 pounds which gives us a comfortable fuel burnoff cushion. The cross and other numbers were almost perfect.

Connelly finally got on the track with the old tires to see if the car felt the same as when we ran it in September. It was close. We then put on the new tires, and proceeded to run them in. On the second 10 lap session on the new tires Con spun going into turn 3, I had put too much front brake in the car, he almost saved it he did a half spin then stopped on the grass and came back in.

We had a few issues; the ignition develloped a slight pop when it was cold, with the help of James Wilson (who we purchassed the car from) got that sorted out, I ordered a new set of red coils today. James helped us adjust the camber and toe and reset the brake bias and the car was almost perfect. We had Cody Logan who raced the car before we got it, take it out and shake it down and he reported it was good to go.

Connelly took the car back out for the final run of the day. He got 14 good laps in turning a fast lap of 13.66 on the1/4 mile banked oval. His fast lap of the day was 13.49. All in all a very successful outing for the opening of the 2011 season. Hope to have many more.