NMCA has released its 2012 schedule for the Points Championship Series. The Texas Whale Intends to be at all of these events. It will post the other races it intends to be at once the dates are released.
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NMCA as released its 2012 Schedule |
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For more information on the NMCA Flowmaster Muscle Car Nationals log on to www.nmcadigital.com or call (714) 444-2426. |
With updates for it’s future.
It really isn’t very difficult for anyone to put together a Word Press type of site for your race team/car — or any other topic. $8.95 a year for a domain name and a couple of bucks a month for web hosting. I’d put together a step by step instruction on how to do it yourself at: Word Press for Dummies
Although the Points Championship is all over — there’s a small (but hopefully will grow) non-points race called the “Lonestar Shootout” coming up that will include NSS racing.
Qualifying is Saturday and Eliminations is Sunday. If you’re interested in seeing some good drag racing — come on out. We’re in the process of getting the Vitamin C ready for me to race — as the engine was blown in the Texas Whale.
If you’re interested in Nostalgia Super Stock racing — we have a pretty good site at NSS Racing | Nostalgia Super Stock Racing and a forum at NSS Racing Forums
This wall calendar was just completed from hi-res photos taken at Bowling Green and Joliet this year. The NSS Mopars 2012 Wall Calendar will make a great Christmas gift for your Mopar fanatic friends, look good in your trailer — or just tack it to the headboard of your bed. The below are low resolution thumbnails of the the calendar cover and pages. Rest assure the actual pages use 300DPI images of over 4MB per photo — taken with professional photo equipment. Please pass this information along to any of the Mopar sites you visit.
You can find this NSS calendar and more Nostalgia Super Stock memorabilia at www.cafepress.com/texasbigbird
Here are the low res photos of the his res pages. The printer does a full bleed — so not as much of the border will actually show on the pages. You can click the link in the above to see real low res photos. These are from high quality digital photos of over 4 MB each
http://www.cafepress.com/texasbigbird/8117193
and there is a version 2.0 for those who prefer the drawing look over photos
http://www.cafepress.com/texasbigbird/8117741
I just got off the phone with Scott Sparrow with NMCA to see if they would give NSS a Wally to the winner of the Houston race, and he got with Trey and Charlie Harmon — who agreed that there will be a NSS Wally.
For those who didn't know, for 2011 NMCA partnered up with the NHRA Unleashed series — and winners of the point series races since Joliet have received a Wally. The rumor I'd heard was this was a one year only deal — and I don't think that NMCA/NHRA will make an announcement (either way) concerning 2012 before PRI.
So, if you haven't won a Wally so far, and don't win the one in Indy — then Houston might be the last opportunity you will ever get to put a Wally on your book shelf.
The other good thing about the Houston race — is that NMCA will return all of the NSS Driver's Fees back to the racers in their purse. The more who come to take their shot at the Wally in NSS — the bigger the NSS purse will be.
The South need some help from its northern brothers to get Nostalgia Super Stock in front of potential future NSS racers, and we need to try to show NMCA that Houston would be a great warm weather replacement for the first or last race of the year. Few NSS racers like Bradenton, but NMCA has to have it proven to them that Houston is a good track to run when it gets too cold up North. Please make plans to make the Houston race November 11-12.
More information at: http://www.nssracing.com/forums/showthread.php?59-There-will-be-NSS-racing-in-Houston
NMCA has released a points update for after Milan — but they’re, and they’re not. One race will be dropped, and bonus points given for the number of races attended. So if you were to drop the race of all of the people that have made all of the races so far to compare with the 0 that a few racers in the top 10 have — the standings could be different. To see how NMCA calculates the points, –> http://www.nmcadigital.com/points/2011NMCApoints.pdf
These calendars are printed as ordered (on demand) here in the US — and shipped to anywhere in the world — as opposed to having a couple of thousand printed up in China. I'm in it to promoted NSS — and never made $100 total off any of the calendars I've created. It isn't a money thing.
I had a few health issues this year, and haven't had the opportunity to personally take any high-resolution photos of good quality — and to date, no one has sent me any.
What I have been able to do is take photos of far less resolution necessary to make a good photo calendar — and spend many hours using some Photoshop tricks to make the photos into Comic book style images of the needed resolution. Over the weekend I've created a calendar using high resolution versions of the low resolution images used below.
Right now as I type this, the calendar http://www.cafepress.com/texasbigbird/7998403 uses 2011 pages and hasn't yet converted to 2012 pages. Generally in October they convert the pages to 2012 — it those interested want to wait until the pages change to 2012. The link will be the same for now with the 2011 pages — and after the conversion of the calendar to 2012.
In the pits at Milan, a few of us were taste-testing beer when a question was asked, which I've heard many times in the 8 years I've been running NSS. "What can we do to promote NSS Drag Racing"?
One of the answers came from Doug Duell, when he lamented that NSS racers make a Piss-Poor showing at the NMCA Awards Ceremony at the PRI. A previous NSS sponsor (I believe it was Hedman Headers) walked away from sponsoring NSS with the NMCA a few years back, when only one NSS driver attended the Awards Ceremony. I missed last year's because of surgery, but went to the one two years ago when there was only Doug, Stephanie, and I from NSS who attended. Personally the location sucks for me — and after spending $15,000-$20,000 a year traveling to races where the closest is 900 miles away — I find it hard to justify paying to have Dallas and I traveling to Orlando (a place I personally hate) for a one-hour ceremony. However I will try to attend this year's, and suggest those who live a lot closer to Orlando than I — to also attend. The PRI show does have a lot of cool exhibits that can give a lot of drivers some good ideas for their cars.
Since the race, I've tried to think of what we can do to create more interest in Nostalgia Super Stock racing. Keep in mind that my background is in Business/marketing, and my interests include web design and the Internet. My suggestions below come from that background. Please add any suggestions you have to the thread at www.NSSracing.com/forums — and let's kick them around.
My first suggestion would be for more of the racers to get more active and have less apathy with their personal involvement.
I created the forums for NSS racers to discuss NSS topics. I've heard of grousing that I personally post too much — but that's because others currently post too little. I see a lot of visits to the board, a lot of people reading the posts, and a lot of people registering to post — but too few are posting. The excuses I hear are that "I hate Chat Rooms" (a forum is far different from a chat room), "My Typing Sucks", "I'm afraid my post will cause drama with another poster", ….. What is most likely the deal is pretty common with new boards — a Mexican Standoff. For whatever reason too many people won't post until the board gets popular with many other people posting regularly. Some people are followers and wait for the leaders, while others feel like the forums aren't worthy of their posting until the forum becomes very active. Fact is that posting adds content that is scanned and indexed by search engines. The more context on the web site — the more visitors will be directed to a site. The more visitors directed to a site — the more will participate. The more who participate — the more active the board becomes. So please — if you see a topic that you have an opinion on — please post your opinion. We're all friends here — and unlike other racing forums, we're not going to have a problem with mean-spirited smack. If you have a technical question — ask it. There's no stupid question to most of us. Everyone started out ignorant and only acquired knowledge by the experience of others. I've in the past asked what some might have considered stupid questions — and I didn't care what some might have thought as long as I got a good answer. Any question asked and answered in the forums is better than those asked and answered over the phone/email/Private Messaging — because others will benefit from the experience. There are no real big secrets in NSS racing. Most any double-secret experience advantage is most likely really understood by better than half of the racers anyway, and having others understand makes for better racing. NSS Racers are some of the best in racing — and it is all really down to cutting a good light and hitting the number. The better the NSS racing to those watching — the more popular it becomes.
After every race I post a team report. I have to send one to one of my product sponsors — and so I might as well also post it on the site. While some people feel it is "7-pages of excuses", others are interested in the trials and tribulations of different race teams and it builds searchable content that bring visitors to the web site — and maybe someday racing with us. Why not consider posting a short recap of your team's vision of the race. Many people will actually like to read it — and screw those who don't.
Post any upcoming events in both the Event forum and the public calendar of the forum. If you are an event promoter with a NSS race — you're crazy not to take advantage of publicity. A Marketing class I took in college taught me that publicity is free advertising — and the best type of advertising. Don't leave it to me to look for and post every event — because I'm as busy as everyone else, maybe busier. Items posted in the forum's calendar are advertised at the bottom of the forum's index page starting 45 days prior to the event. The way that sites are ranked by order of popularity on search engines — is based on the number of sites linked to it, and the number of people clicking on those links. If I were to be holding an event — I'd be trying to get my link on as many sites as possible, and I'd want relevant sites to get me clicks.
Use the Free Classified ad section to buy, sell, and post your wants of relevant NSS items.
Upload your car to the Staging Lanes.
Tell others of sites that promote Nostalgia Super Stock Racing.
Post a link to it, or relevant threads in other forums you might visit.
Tell other NSS racers about these sites when you speak with them
If you're on Facebook — click the like button on the NSS Racing page, and share the posting there with others. Use the recommend feature to tell your racing friends of the page. Click the Share link to share the NSS Racing posts on Facebook with others including you on their Newsfeed.
Use your email to tell your drag racing friends about these NSS racing sites.
Get a link to NSS sites posted on any site that accepts links. It not only brings new visitors — but raises the ranking of the site on Search engines, generating more people to check it out.
Spread the word about the NSS Class of racing
There are a lot of drag racers out there with acceptable NSS cars — which would require only minimal modifications to be legal to race in NSS. Be on the lookout for these cars — and tell these drivers about NSS. A lot of people don't have a clue that NSS exists. I got into it in 2003, when I owned the Texas Big Bird Pro-Mod car. We brought it to the Monster to make Exhibition passes when I saw all of the NSS cars. Within a week, I'd met Damon on the NMCA forum and then had my red 65 Coronet (which I bracket raced locally) at the Texas Thunder's shop for Mark to convert for NSS and Damon to build the motor.
Talk to your track about having NSS run in one of their events. A lot of the track operators are looking for ideas to bring in spectators — and NSS is a popular class to do it with. Even if you talk them into having you and three other cars come to make some exhibition passes to split a grand.
Submit high quality photos of your car to the appropriate car magazines, telling of its racing heritage in NSS, and include a link to a site like www.NSSracing.com for more information. I've done this many times — and the magazines are more than happy to post a quality link.
Take your kids or a friend to the races. A lot of the current racers got interested in running NSS after seeing it.
Attend more NSS races. The more cars we get to an event, the better the event's chance for survival. More cars also create a better impression to the spectators, event promoters, and other racers who might be interested in running NSS.
Increase your operating distance by another 100 or so miles.
Try to help friends by attending NSS races they're trying to organize in their locale.
Don't participate in just one group's events. Make it a point to include one or two races held by other groups too.
Push to make NSS events better
Remind event promoters that purse size matters. It is not a coincidence that the largest NSS event (the Dave Duell Classic) is also the one with the biggest purse.
Push event promoters to do a better job getting contingency sponsors that actually have something applicable to NSS racers. For instance, in NMCA most all of the products that pay are for the Pro-Thug classes — and not stuff you'd find on a NSS car.
If you support a group (as I do the NMCA), push to have an event in your area. Be persistent.
If you have any influence with a vendor able to donate good swag for the NSS Driver's Dinner at the Dave Duell Classic — use it. Racers love swag. Headers, slicks, and a convertor were highly sought after swag at the last event. With a little help from other racers with influence — we could also have sets of shocks, ignition boxes, recordable tachs, intake manifolds, wheels, heads, carburetors, trans-shields, fuel pumps, billet water pumps….. given out at the Driver's Dinner. Great swag is as good as some of the purses at some of the races, and will attract more drivers to the events. You'd be surprised how many vendors that you have regular contact with who would be more than happy to donate swag. In return they receive racer appreciation (I'm right now buying a new ATI convertor because they ponied up at the last DDC Dinner) and promotion on the DDC web site.
Be a Good Ambassador for Nostalgia Super Stock racing.
Be friendly, courteous, and helpful to other drivers, and potential drivers. It doesn't make a difference what a person has or doesn't have, how long they've raced, where they live, what they do for work, what they drive, who they race with, who they pit with, how much they've won or lost, — or anything else. We all put our pants on the same way each morning, and the great philosopher Rodney King once asked "can't we all just get along?" I can honestly say that I like each and every NSS driver I've ever met. Of all the groups of racers, NSS racers as a whole are the best Ambassadors.
Offer your help to the people running the events that don't have the proper staff to make things run smoothly.
Be pro-active promoting NSS racing. It isn't that hard to make a little effort to help grow Nostalgia Super Stock racing.
These are my ideas on how we can better promote NSS racing. Please add yours to http://www.nssracing.com/forums/showthread.php?131-Promoting-NSS
We left the shop at 9am in Richmond, TX on Wednesday, and drove the 700+ miles to Jackson, TN for the night. On the road again at 8am Thursday morning we hooked up with Doug Duell in Louisville in the afternoon. After dinner in a truck stop north of Dayton, OH; and we made it to the track's staging area late Thursday night.
Recapping my season thus far, I started off running the Vitamin C, and ran great at Bradenton, FL — Qualifying #1, but getting pushed back in the Semis of Eliminations for 6 drops of clean water. Back home we pulled the motor and replaced a freeze plug in one of the heads that had a pin hole leak. In Atlanta I qualified well — but went -.002 red in the first round of Eliminations. I found out I had an E-Coli infection just before the Maryland race — and I only went there to qualify the car with one pass (to not lose bonus points) — but decided to run all of the Qualifying and Eliminations once there. The car ran well in Qualifying, but on Sunday morning it was strangely 1/10 off in the first round of Eliminations. Back home Dallas found the timing off a little and we attributed that to be the problem. Still hurting from E-Coli, we went to the race in Joliet. The car was running slow in the two Time Trials, and I had to unbolt every ounce of extra weight to get it to run the number in the second Time Trial. In the first round of Eliminations, the car ran the number — but the motor didn't sound right so I shut it down after I crossed the line. After towing it back to the pits, we found water coming out of the number 3 spark plug hole. Pulling the heads found water seeping in the #3 cylinder. Obviously this was the problem in Maryland, and this was my third first round loss. Back home we found the block was not repairable (for racing) and a search began for a good 426 Max-Wedge block. I had surgery 10 days before the Dave Duell Classic in Bowling Green, but I couldn't miss this race as it is my favorite. Dallas couldn't come to this race — so I ran his car, which I last ran in 2006 before making it a NSS car for Dallas to run. I won class for A/NSS on Saturday — but lost a close race in the 1st round of Eliminations against Donnie Wilson for the Big Show on Sunday. Since I was so far back in the points (10th of 81), I decided to start running the Texas Whale the rest of the year to work the bugs out of this completely new race car. So the Whale was in the trailer for Milan, along with the black Coronet that Dallas runs.
The track opened at 10AM, and we were pitted, had established credentials, and teched the cars in by 1PM. At 3PM I ran my first pass and the car was a little slow because of a bad burnout.
For the second (and last Time Trial) at 5PM, I made a adjustment to the shocks settings, launched lighter, and change my shift points a little. That got me a little closer to my 10.0 Index.
That put me to where I wanted to be. The first round of Qualifying was to be at 7PM. I put 60 pounds in the car to compensate for the .05 too fast and the anticipated weather change. We wound up sitting in the staging lanes for a lot longer than I had planned for as the temperature dropped — and was about 5 pounds too light to not break out.
Pulling onto the trailer — the car sounded like Hell. Fast forward an hour and we found all of the Torque Converter bolts loose. Further, the flexplate was hosed. So at 2AM — the transmission was finally out of the car, and the flexplate unbolted.
At 7AM I am running around the pits looking for a Flexplate. Never found one, so when Mancinni Racing opened at 10AM, I ordered a plate, the crank/converter bolts, and had a friend in Detroit (thanx Doc) bring them to the track. I missed the 2nd Qualifying at 10AM. By 2PM, we threw in the towel because the transmission side snout on the converter was chewed up (indicating I needed a transmission bushing/seal) and the crank side snout on my replacement converter wasn't milled properly for my crankshaft. So the car was put on the trailer.
Dallas qualified #13 of 21, and ran Barry Camp in the first round, and Barry bested him. Doug Duell had a better than 300 point lead — but was also knocked out in the first round. The 2nd in Points (Steve Wilson), 3rd (Kurt Neighbor), and 4th (Doug Poskevitch) all advanced through both the second round and into the Semis — where Kurt ran Steve, and Doug had the bye. Poskevitch and Neighbor met in the finals — with Neighbor winning the Wally. Now you can throw a blanket over 1st through 4th, with Neighbor now most likely in the lead. The double–points finals in Indy ought to be very interesting.
On the way home, we dropped the Whale off at Doug Duell's chassis guy in Evansville. He'll deal with the transmission/converter, change the gears from 4.86 to 4.57, fix the brakes, weld on some tie down loops, and align the front end — as he had an immediate opening and was on our way home, and then again back to Indy.
All in all, the Whale drove well and has far fewer wrinkles than most brand new race cars. While I'm disappointed in not making it to Eliminations — I'm not disappointed in the car. It feels very comfortable to drive and I think I'll be running it in the FX Indexes next year.
While I have no chance for the Championship in 2011 — I intend to be a spoiler at Indy with this car, and make a hard run for the ring with it in 2012.
