1998

12-10-98

I'm in the process taking my car apart to put on some new paint on and try to restore it as much as possible, but still be a street/strip car, look under my car reconstruction to the left for some pictures. 12-19-98 put up a few more pictures

11-29-98

Happy turkey day all. We finally got some completed pictures of Jims street car here.

11-24-98

Since the end of the race season has come, we attended the PRA picnic, and only got a few drops of rain. I picked up my little award, won a few items in the raffle, and had a great time. Since then, we put the wheel standing turbo motor back in Jims car (where it belongs) and took it out for its first real showing. VW Obsessions, a local So. Cal. club, put on a show on Sunday the 22, in the West Coast Metric parking lot, so we woke up early, drove the car down and entered it in the Street Custom class. Yea buddy, he won class, and to top it off he won Best of Show as well. Way to go Jim. :-). Jim also took some pictures, and if i can get off my lazy butt, i'll put them up soon, mater of fact ill call him right now (11:30am)

10-31-98

Dan at Ocean Street Video, the maker of the PRA race tapes, emailed me to notify me that he was going to put a video clip of one of my wheelies on his page, I watched the clip. Thats cool. Click here to go to his page of downloads. My personal favorite is Jack's incar cam in a prostock. He looks like he's on a sunday drive. Well maybe a close second to the Tina New clip. And be sure to tell him Muffler Mike sent you.

10-28-98

PRA World Finals, Wittman Az.

What a fun day. Great friend and great racing. I had the points championship wraped up in vegas, so this was a no pressure day of racing. I used Jim's turbo street motor as is after last weekends outing, and WOW again. it did at least 4 major wheel stands, a couple of minor in comparison, and stayed on the ground on one pass. I even got out of shape on the third qualifying pass, it went high and to the right wall, came down and did another wheelie when i hit second gear and veered even more to the right. As I made a  mess in my shorts, I over corrected and slid across the lane. That got my adrenaline pumping. Jim's motor produced a best time of a 12.24 at 108.57 mph, and on another pass in eliminations that i shut down early, the 1/8 mile time was over a thenth of a second quicker then the 12.24 pass. Then to top off all of this fun, I WON AGAIN. Yipppie. You can see a picture of my first round elimination wheelie at the HOTSHOTS PRA RESULTS PAGE.  Be sure to tell them Muffler Mike sent you.         TO: PAUL, TROY, JOHN, JIM, Lets get some pan..

10-19-98

We put Jim's little turbo street motor in my car for the last race of the year. We decided to do some testing, and  went down to Carlsbad on saturday. We put the motor in full street trim, with muffler and fan belt on. Turned up the boost a little. got it to run at 13 pounds through the gear and it went up to 15 in the top of forth gear. We netted a 12.49 at 106.75. Not to shabby for a street motor. We then got greedy and took the muffler off, and WOW! it suddenly woke up and ran a 12.05 at 101 with me shutting down at about the 1000 ft mark, because the boost suddenly rose past 18 pounds in forth. I didn't want to lift a head off. We then turned the boost back down and made the last pass of the day. And WOW! again, it did a wheelie that i didn't even expect, even on the street tires. Check out this pic below. What an adrenaline rush. It's a weird feeling when you loose sight of the track.

I'm ready for the last race at Wittmann

10-7-98

Las Vegas Bug-in 5

Not the weekend I had planed, but a bad day at the track is still better then a good day at work. During the first pass of the morning, during the burn out, I started to notice I was down on power coming out of the water box, and after the launch, I though I had a miss. At the end of the track, when I let of the gas, there was a noticeable tick. My first thought was I broke another rocker adjuster. Check out all of them and came to the conclusion that it might be something more. Opened the oil filter and found a ton of copper colored particles. Not a good thing. So I idled the car to the line in first round to get my points and make an appearance and called it a day. I took the motor apart monday night and sure enough, number three rod bearing was chewed up. I guess when my pro light (set at 30 psi) came on in fourth gear at sacramento. I should have not assumed that it was a bad sender. Just another learning experience. But as much as I've run this motor, sooner or later things will happen. If I can't get the motor done for Whitman, I will be using Jim Hagethorn's Turbo street motor. It has already ran a 12.68 in my car down at carlsbad earlier this year.

Congrats Darren for winning the class, and Troy, I'll rub your car next time.

9-8-98

Sacramento Bug-o-Rama 42

For those of you that were there with us will know what i'm talking about, It was (Bleeping) Hot. After a thousand diet cokes and a bunch of wet towel to wipe off with to stay cool , I managed to last 6 rounds of eliminations and come home with a win. I love Sacramento. My friend Jim took some cool videos, and if I can figure it out, i'll try to put some on here along with some picture.(as soon as i get a new scanner)  As usual, you can get the rest of the race results and great pictures from Bryan at the Hotshots PRA site.

8-17-98

Denver race didn't go as good as I would have liked it to, but it was still fun. The car ran a best of a 13.26 at a whopping 99.9 mph. I guess that's ok at the mile high track. I was taken out in the third round.(quarter finals) I was having some problems getting the alcohol to light off at that altitude and when the motor was cold. So before third round, I was getting paranoid that the motor wouldn't start, I was starting the motor up allot. I think I got it a little hotter then I should. It ran a 13.53 on a 13.27 dial in. I went out in the third round last year with this similar problem, which shook me and I red lighted. Still a fun trip. We even went to the Coors factory on Saturday and got some free beer.

8-2-98

new guest book at bottom of the page.

7-27-98

My apologies for not updating for a while, had computer problems and was without a monitor for a month.

I had a lot of fun between races.

First, I went to the West Coast Metric open house party, and got to show off my car, plus I got to see some really cool vintage cars in WCM's collection, and then it was off to the VW Classic in Irvine. That was a lot of fun as well. I entered my car in the show so I could get the little participation plack and pin. To my surprise, I got first in the competition class.(Imagine that)

A week after that, I took my car down to Carlsbad Ca. to see if I had solved my back fire problem and tach reading problem. The car cracked off two 12.42s and a 12.44. Hot dam, its fixed.

Two weeks later, I finished up my friend Jim's street TURBO motor. So we put it in my car and headed down to Carlsbad again. Well, driving a turbo is not like an asparated motor, but I learned quick. First pass netted only a 15.29, well I definitely floundered on the line. Second pass was a 13.29, It ran pretty good and I got worried that we were not going to make our goal and brake into the 12's. Third pass, well with a bigger limiter chip and some different shifting points, suddenly it woke up and ran a 12.68 at 103.9. we were defiantly happy now. We tried some other things and ended up with a 12.88 and a 12.75, so the logical thing to do was to repete the third pass. On pass six, it ran another 12.68. Not to shabby for its first time out of the drive way. This motor is only a 1900cc (69x94), with some of those CB 044 head (40x35.5)with no porting at all (those ports are tiny), a cam that only gave up .439 lift at the valve, a TO-4 turbo, and a weber 40 side draft, all with a whopping 10 lbs of boost on Arco junk super unleaded.   The car that it will be going in is near completion and will use this motor to run around on the street. Pictures of the car are here.

Now, I am putting my motor back in for the Denver race, hope you can make it out there, or come on out to Sacramento on Labor day weekend, this is the show to watch.

Update for Bug-O-Rama 41. Bryan at Hotshots got a cool picture of me doing a wheelie from the front. Check out this picture at the Hotshots PRA page, and be sure to look at all the other cool stuff they have.

5-30-98

Bug-O-Rama 41 in Sacramento

Darn, I didn't win... I did come away with  a runner-up.

I raced Bob Penton in the final. I watched Bob run his semi final and he ran a 11.75. Thinking I would have the advantage with my motor nice and cool and Bob just making his third, yes third re-run of the day, (a few christmas tree problems) his motor was getting mighty hot. Boy was I wrong. I cut a .039 rt and Bob's was a .053, I ran 12.620 on a 12.60 dial, Bob ran a 11.755 on his 11.75 dial. When you do the math, I lost by .001 of a second. Now that's close. Congrats to Bob and his crew, a great job driving and a very consistent car.

For more race results, check out the PRA site

4-22-98

South West Bug-In at Speedworld in Phoenix

Wow, what a weekend, my car ran like sh_t, couldn't figure out what the popping all the way down the track was, then to top it off, during the last qualifying round, I broke the left axle. Amanda, (my better half, best friend, Love of my life and co-conspirator) encouraged me to try to fix it before eliminations, so I started to take off the tire, and then the EMS guys  (Dick, Bill, Bruce, Ken, Hobi, Jeremy, Ben, Mr. Abe) asked what I needed, Hobi and his son Jeremy, donated there gear box to the cause, so while I got deeper into tearing down the side of my box, a special thanks goes to Troy  (Melanie) Smith, who played jack man and gave me hands on assistance, note: (he just happens to be my direct competitor in the points series), mean while, John Jalbert, and Virgil (Michelle) Whiddon, got down and dirty under the car with me, I think it was Ron Rice (Patricia) and his folks, along with Bruce Fordyce and Ken Gracy who tore down Hobi's box, got the axle out  of it, and presented me with it, fellow racers around me offered their assistance, tools and whimsical commentary, plus a small lookie-loo crowd started to form, which motivated me even more!!! We got it all together, surprisingly enough, just in time to find out that I also had a broken rocker adjuster, is there an end here to my hellish day???.... From there, Every thing went my way and I came home with the win for the second time this season.    (some pictures are coming)        

I'm amazed, tired, and very thankful!

a personal note:

I dedicate this win to all the people above that I mentioned, and even some I didn't even realize that helped because I was too into the car. I am very honored and proud to be associated with all of you who come out to race and support us.

  3-23-98

Phoenix Bug-O-Rama #24 was a good weekend for me. I managed to squeak by with a couple of lucky brakes, and came home with a win in the Pro-Eliminator class.

3-16-98

"Muffler" Mike is pleased to announce the addition of a new sponsor.

West Coast Metric has come aboard for the 1998 PRA race season.

Be sure to check out there web site.