Sorry, but i wasnt actually pointing the finger at Dave here, or indeed Trev albeit it was his spanner man that ****ed up, so p'haps as far as that Trev should have ensured that the guy was up to it, but also the dyno man shoulda picked up on the crank on its way out. Even with the noise, with the dyno man on the bike he should have FELT something wasnt right just with the vibration a failing roller bearing makes before it goes.
As a racer i fully understand the pressures in the pits of getting ready for the next run when things arent going right and parts are scarce and you have to make the decision of whether to go again and risk blowing it apart. The experimental side of things is not a prob either, it has to be done to carry the game forward.
The point is, any team is only as strong as its weakest link, and the cheaper option by the look of would have been to pay someone like Pip Higham to go thru the motor rather than rely on a guy clearly not up to it, there is a major difference between a motor of this level than rebuilding a stock engine to stock tolerances as we all appreciate.
In that respect thats what i call amateurish, i was shocked at what i was reading when the pistons etc were mentioned for a team (WON and Dave) who are aiming high to LET those sort of things happen.
For a first season out with experimental equipment i think you all did very well, and yeah, i know weather wise the season was poor for track time, so respect for what achievements were made where they're due along with best wishes for the upcoming season, but to be the best, sometimes you have to use the best too, which would be one reason to use WON gear to start with, but i think on both counts you have to use that philosophy a bit more in other areas to achieve the results the potential can deliver. As weve all found at some point expensive can be cheaper in the long run.
Anyway, hope thats cleared that up a bit and all the best for 6 second runs in 2010
Steve
Noswizard wrote:
Dave you can't take the blame like that, as our extensive testing on the dyno pushed everything closer to it's limits and left you with even worse parts to have to make do with in the first place.
Add to that the fact that the heads were cracked in a number of incidents and then not repaired correctly, you could only have been left handicapped and fighting the inevitable.
In addition to that all the points you make about the limitations of your situation (all of which I can vouch for) and then the fact that we were using a totally experimental system, that we were unable to be totally confident in as a consequence of so many unknowns and I'd say you/we did rather well to achieve what we did.
Now with some money and a support team it would have been a different story and as ONLY you and I know, we've been up against it more so than anyone else in the world of Drag racing these past 2 years and ONLY someone in Pro Mod could come close to appreciating what competing at such extreme levels involves. So there's NO WAY you should shoulder ANY 'blame' for any short fall in the results you/we achieved, as they were all primarily due to the limitations we were both under and the UNIQUE situation we went through.
If the level of business I've already experienced in the first week of the year is maintained, I'm sure I'll be able to assist you to some degree to improve whatever you need this year and hopefully we'll see the results we both know were only a whisker away last year.