Black Dog Racing - 1999 Season Recap at Tri-City Raceway

The race season started for us in January. We had to have the engine in the 1977 Ford F-150 pickup rebuilt from a worn out 351M to a 400M so that the truck would have enough power to pull a big trailer. It was lots of work getting the truck running. The result was a very powerful truck capable of easily pulling our 24-foot enclosed trailer and 1977 Toyota Celica race car.

I purchased the race car and two parts cars from Steve O'Neill. Steve and his father, Charles, were a tremendous help getting the car ready and teaching me about the nuances of the car and racing in the Pure Stock Division at the Tri-City Raceway in West Richland, WA.

I worked with several local shops to get the car ready to race. The first problem was a leaky radiator. I replaced the radiator in the pickup with a larger radiator to handle the rebuilt engine in January. I got the larger radiator from Jerry's Radiator. Jerry and I worked out a deal for a radiator and sponsorship of the race car.

The right front fender was kinda banged up and I wanted it to look nicer. Ryan Hohimer helped me out and made an excellent fender out of the beat up one. I told Ryan that one goal I had this year was to not mess up that fender. It held up very well until the last race - more on that later.

The race car was shaping up nicely. I removed all of Steve's old numbers and sponsors from the car and prepped the car for a new paint job. River City Towing offered to paint the car. We painted the car a basic white with paint from Paint and Equipment Supply.

Now it was time to add the graphics. We worked up a simple lettering scheme and picked the car number 23. Why 23? First, it was not used by anyone else at the track. Second, it was Michael Jordon's number and he was not using it anymore.

Since racing is a very expensive business I started looking for partners to help finance operations. AMOCO and Rocket Mart were quite helpful. Al Pogue (AMOCO) and Chung Yi (Rocket Mart) provided funds in return for advertising space on the car.

I worked with Tim and Kim at Full Moon Graphics on the business logos, graphic layout, and overall design of the vinyl to be applied to the car.

Laura and I had made plans to go to Portugal in March for two weeks of vacation with our friends, Penny and Elise, whom we met several years ago in Italy. We had a blast! The race car was in good shape and work at Battelle was at a comfortable level (no stress) so it was easy to relax and enjoy the vacation and company of my wife and good friends. Not to mention putting over 1200 miles on a rental car in Portugal, Spain, and Gibraltar.

When we got back it was time to make the final preparations to the race car. I missed the only two pre-season practices at the race track while we were in Portugal. Arrangements had been made with Full Moon Graphics to put the vinyl graphics on the car a few days before the first race.

The Monday before the first race I was at work and I felt sick to my stomach. I thought it was the stomach flu. I went home at noon and took a nap. By 5:00 pm I was hurting pretty bad. By 7:00 pm I could not get comfortable no matter what I tried so I went to the doctor. He did some blood work and sent me over to the hospital.

Dr. Scully at the hospital told me he was 90% sure that I had an appendicitis but was confused that I had pains on both sides. The hospital was full and so was the one in Kennewick so I had to go to the hospital in Pasco. By 10:30 pm I was in surgery and by 11:00 pm I was in my room pumping morphine. It took less time for the surgery then it did to fill out the paperwork. The confusion over the pain on both side of my body was explained by an appendix that was 10 inches long instead of the normal 4 inches.

That was it, no racing for me. By Wednesday, I was up and walking around without the morphine or pain pills. I went to the doctor on Friday and he said I was fine. I made him give me a note to give to my wife that said is was all right for me to race on Saturday. Laura was not happy about the note but I told her I would take it easy and be careful and if I hurt at all I would stop racing.

The First Race - April 17

Saturday afternoon was the first time I got to drive the race car ever and my first time on the Tri-City Raceway track. The O'Neills helped me get ready and gave me lots of advice.

My first trip around the track was slow as I tried to build up some heat in the tires and get a feel for the car. It handled great but then again I was only going about 70 mph. My initial times were in the range of 28-29 seconds per lap. I was working on different lines on the track and finding out what the car could do.

The O'Neills were very supportive and when I asked what times I should be running to go fast, they calmly told me I needed to improve my time by a few seconds. When I asked where the top 3-5 cars would be running Steve hesitantly replied "in the low 23s". They quickly added that my last laps on the track were getting about 1/2 second faster per lap.

I was feeling good and the large 4 inch whole in my side was holding up real well. Since I had no time to put graphics on the car, the track officials made me use black duct tape to put the number 23 on the top and doors of the car.

Now came qualifying. I picked a good line on the track and pushed the car as hard as it would go. When I came back into the pit I caught a little bit of flack from lots of people. My time for qualifying was 23.30 seconds which was 4th fastest time that night. The flack was for improving my time by over 5 seconds.

The first race was the Trophy Dash. I was on the pole for the 4 lap race with 4 cars. I was quickly taken to school on how to race and managed to get passed by every car and finish dead last.

The second race was the eight lap Heat Race. I started in 5th and was able to pass a few cars and finish with a 3rd place.

The main event race was 30 laps. I started in 10th. The car was running good and the driving was pretty clean so I just took it easy and passed as many cars as I could in places I knew was safe. There was a wreck just before the end of the race and I was in 3rd place. The leader was Lee "Evil" Evans and in second was another rookie, Brian Lambert. When the green flag came back out there was only 2 laps left and I had to push it if I was going to pass Brian. Brian drove a good solid line and I did not want to risk wrecking just to pass one more car. Since then Brian and I have become good friends on and off the track. I also became good friends with many of the drivers in several classes.

Laura was proud of me but she was a nervous wreck. She had also looked at the note from Dr. Scully again and figured out that it said it was "OK for me to race - Slowly". Luckily for me his hand writing was so bad that I was able to convince Laura before the race that it said it was "OK for me to race - Scully".

The car ran pretty hot during the main event and was worse than I thought. The engine got so hot that it warped the head on the motor. Before the race season I really did not know anything about engines and had no experience working on them other than putting my assembled truck engine back in the truck and occasionally changing spark plugs.

I turned to Jerry for help and he had just hired Larry Ganske. Larry was not very eager to help me out but was glad to take my money and work on the car. I knew I needed to be able to work on the car myself or I was in for some real expensive racing. I had to prove myself to Larry by watching what he did, asking the right questions at the right time, and working my butt off to show him I could do the work. In time, Larry became a good friend and a great help during the rest of the season.

The car was slow for the next several races and we tried many things. I did fairly well in the season points standings by just avoiding wrecks and finishing every race.

On May 15th I was able to win my first Trophy Dash race. I also won the heat race that night but finished 6th in the main event. On May 22nd I was able to win the heat race again.

BOSS Internet Group (BOSSig) joined Black Dog Racing (BDR) as the primary sponsor on the hood of the car. The real primary sponsors and biggest supporters of BDR were clearly Laura, Cara, and Marlene for letting me even race.

On June 5th during the heat race I was knocked off the track at over 70 mph. The car was in the air and the brakes were of no use until I hit the ground. The car bounced twice in the dirt and was probably going over 50 mph when I smacked into one of those huge tires and bounced back about 5 feet. The car was hurt pretty bad but the worst part was that there was no way to fix it for the main event so I did not get any points that night. I was fine but my right arm was pretty sore from being flung around in the car during the impact.

The very next week during the main event there was another wreck on lap 2. This one was in front of me and I tried to avoid it but the driver in front of me hit me in the exact same spot from the previous week. His car was much heavier than mine and inflicted the same about of damage to the car as the tire impact from the previous week. During the rest of the race I could hear my right rear tire rubbing the fender. It sounded really bad like it was cutting the tire. I had to drive a touch slower to keep the weight from shifting to the right side to minimize the risk of cutting the tire. I just hoped that the tire would hold up until the end of the race. I was able to finish the race in 12th place. When I entered the pits I was very sad to find out that such a loud scraping noise produced very little effect on the tire.

Towards mid-season I was very frustrated that we could not get the car to go faster. I turned to Carl Dean at Badger Canyon Racing for help with the suspension and chassis setup. Carl installed a front and rear hoop in the car and showed me how to rate the front and rear springs in the car. We played with the stock shocks, struts, and springs and came up with a combination that worked. With no changes to the engine we were able to make the car over a full second faster per lap on the track.

Then it came time to completely go through the car and find out why it was not faster. I had gone through the engine several times already but with no luck. The problem turned out to be a combination of fuel line and carburetor. The fuel line was crimped (probably from the first wreck) and the carburetor was not working correctly. I installed a new fuel line. Larry soaked the carburator for me. Laura and I rebuilt the carburetor by video taping while we took the carburator apart and then working our way throught the video tape (backwards) to put it back together. It worked great.

The results were promising. The car ran much better but then we had a problem with the engine spitting oil all over the place. Since we had a few weeks until the next race we decided to check the pistons and rings (the only thing left in the engine that had not been checked). It turned out that there were three broken oil rings. Since there are only four rings that was significant. We replaced the rings and pistons and the engine was as strong as it had ever been since we got it.

The next race I totally messed up my qualifying laps because I was not used to going that fast. I was still able to turn in a pretty good time and qualified in the top 10 cars out of 26. The only problem now was that running the car in 3rd gear made the engine produce lots of power but not as much speed as 4th gear. But in 4th gear I did not have enough power to keep the speed and RPMs up. During the heat race I made a fatal mistake and tried 4th gear. When the cars in front started pulling away I knew I needed to be in 3rd gear. The question was "When should I shift down?". I came out of the west corner and went to shift to 3rd but missed and hit 5th. I immediately shifted back to 4th and tried again. This time I over corrected and shifted to 1st. Then nothing! The engine ran fine but I had no gears.

It turned out that I totally destroyed the clutch. Later we would find out that there was no clutch material left on the clutch plate at all!

I was done for the night. Or was I? That same day racer Steve Burris' brother Gilbert Burris had just finished his new race car and was just out to get some experience in his new car. His car was slow but it was much faster than mine at that point. Gilbert graciously allowed me to use his car. I cleared it with the officials and had to start in the very last spot, 21st place in the main event. At this point I just wanted to get some points. By just turning one lap I would get at least 8 points. The car was very slow compared to the other cars and I could not pass any cars. I was able to avoid the first few wrecks. After about 10 laps the rear end in Gilbert's car was burning up and leaving a trail of black smoke. I could not see the smoke because Gilbert had not installed a rearview mirror yet. The officials black flagged me out of the race and I finished in 20th place and 10 points. I was able to make the most out of the situation. Gilbert was great and I gave him my prize money for lending me his car.

Luckily we had a week off before the last race of the season. I was able to replace the clutch with Laura's and Ryan's help. We also found some new gears to try out. While changing the gears we found that the rear axle housing was bent (again, probably from the first wreck in the season). We replaced the axle housing and gears for the last race.

The last race weekend came and the car had never run better. It was faster than ever for me. I messed up the qualifying laps again but it was the first time I had gotten back into the 23 seconds for lap time since the first race. The main event was a blast. I ran in 3rd place all night and knew I could pass the guy in front of me but I took my time and was just being patient. There were a few wrecks and I was able to avoid them.

Then things started going bad. I came up on lap traffic and started to pass Marty Raymond who normally stays very low going into turn 2. This time he was higher than normal and I let off the gas to give him some room. My left front fender hooked his right rear fender and the more I let up the more drag I caused on his right side causing him to turn right in front of me. I tried to speed up and unhook us but it was too late and he was sideways in front of me and I knew that if I did not get on the gas hard that we would both go off the track. I punched the gas, we came unhooked, and I sent Marty flying off the track. Luckily he just went into the dirt and not into one of the tires. His car was fine but I still felt bad.

On lap 28 out of 40, I was passing lap traffic on the outside in turn 2 when the car below me came up and hit my left rear. I caught the car in time and was correcting the spin perfectly until I hit the 8-inch high curbing at the bottom of the track. The curbing is put there to keep drivers from cheating and going too low through the turn. Unfortunately, the curb has an enormous effect on weight transfer in the car. I went into the dirt bouncing and it may have even broken my steering because I proceeded to spin back up onto the track pointing the wrong way right in front of 5-10 cars. All the cars passed me high except for the last car. The last car had a driver who panicked, locked his brakes, turned left as hard as he could and slid in a straight line at 40+ mph right into my right front fender that Ryan Hohimer did such a nice job on. The only good thing about the wreck was that the driver had the wheels pointing left so right at impact the car sheared off rather than pushing through.

The car could be repaired but it did sustain some frame damage. The engine and drive train is still intact. We figured it was a great car to learn with and now it was time to build another car from scratch.

That wreck brought an end to the 1999 Season. I was able to finish in 7th place in the championship points standings for the season out of 31 drivers. The only other rookie driver to beat me in the points was Brian Lambert who finished 3rd in the points.

Towards the end of the season I got to know Tom Hangartner. Tom races a Toyota in the Mini Class division. Tom and I are currently building a 1981 Toyota Celica for the 2000 Season.

Black Dog Racing thanks all the sponsors that helped out this year and hopefully they can help out even more in the 2000 Season. The 2000 Season should be much more productive since we learned so much and worked our way back up to a fast car at the end of the 1999 Season.

Check out the 1999 BDR Sponsors

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