Eagle's Lair
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August 11, 2007 - SpeedWeek 2007

Ladies & Gentlemen:

Bonneville this year was wet and hot. Getting onto the salt meant driving through a half mile of brine as deep in some places as 14". When we first arrived on Thursday, Aug 9, the salt in the pits was sticky and wet. Over the next few days it improved but never did get dried out.

The trip down was full of difficulties as usual. The new "shorty" school bus couldn't pull the box trailer up the first hill faster than 20 mph and overheated. We turned around and went back home. On the way back, we blew out one of the duels on the rear of the bus. We borrowed Keith Zanghi's four door deuly pickup for the trip. Nothing like taking a fairly new truck onto the salt. I'm going to have to take days to clean it up so Keith won't hate me forever for ruining his truck.

Elaine, Cam, Rachel (daughter-in-law) and Alex (grandson) enjoyed driving straight through for 17 hours to get into Wendover by 11 AM on Thursday. Cam and I traded off driving and were pretty well beat by the time we arrived.

We set up our pits on Thursday and went through tech inspection on Friday morning. After tech, we spent some time tuning the engine for the higher altitude of Bonneville. Suddenly, the engine began running like crap. After much diagnostics, we found the magneto had decided to go weak on us. After having it overhauled just weeks ago, we were really puzzled over that problem. Finally we were able to borrow a mag from a sprint car racer in our home town (Kenny Martin from Puyallup) and had it hand carried to Bonneville by another racer (Eric McClain) who was enroute on Sunday. By Monday we had the engine pulled out, mag replaced, engine re-installed and were ready to go racing.

Our first pass was 139 mph after sitting on the start line for 20 minutes in 105 degree heat while they cleaned up the course after the roadster ahead of me spun and tore up the course. Back to the pits, change the pill, haul back to the start line. Second pass, 133 mph. Pack to pits, bump lead to 42 degrees, install fatter pill, third pass, 144 mph. Back to pits, fatter pill yet. Last pass was on Thursday morning. Combination was right on! Shifted in all gears at 8000 RPM. Hang on, it's loose as a goose. Soft spots on the course, gets sideways, have to pedel it to get straightened out, back on the throttle, out the 3 mile at 147 mph. 

Aren't street roadsters fun?

Ed Shadle

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