Nova Updates - John Heard Racing

First Race Win of the Season – 2017

Our first time out for the 2017 season and we hit a home run! All of our off season changes worked together for a change and we were able to lay down a 4.87 right off the trailer with a very soft tuneup. Next round of qualifying we turned it up a bit and Ol' Blue went 4.75, in the heat of the day on a hot track. Now that might not sound like much, but we've fought hot tracks for what seems like forever, but between the stellar track prep at Ozark Raceway Park and the new changes to the car, it was pretty satisfying to be able to go not only A > B in the heat but to also go pretty quick. We turned it back down for Q3 as it was a 2 pm, and pretty hot, Q4 we went back to the Q2 tune up and it clicked off a 4.759 at almost 152 - a new high MPH for us. Round one of eliminations we got a bye due to odd # of cars, so we turned it up a little and went 4.71@152.23, tweaked it some more against Russell Foreman in E2 and broke the track record with a 4.6768@152, but barely squeaked by with the win as I was late on the tree and Foreman ran a new PB himself in the 4.70's. In the final round we faced up against Tony Phillips once again, Tony knew we were gonna go for a quicker pass and he turned his up also, but must have been a bit too much as he spun, we on the other hand had problems and the car slowed to a 4.84 and lost 7 mph. Later I discovered I left a plug wire off, can't complain as it worked but I really need to start double checking things like that! All in all very good weekend, car worked great and performed better than ever, we got the win and had no major problems!

RTRA Race at North Star Dragway – New PB

[arve url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSBjEmnefPM" title="4.63 Pass at RTRA Race in Texas"] Chris & I decided to end the 2016 racing season with a visit to North Start Dragway down in Denton, TX, and MAN was that a awesome adventure. Everyone has told me for years how good the track prep was down there, and until you get on it, you just don't get HOW good it is. We started out with the same tune up we had in the car at Tulsa, but with tighter shocks and another 10 lbs on the nose, first pass it power wheeled, had to pedal it and went 4.86. Next pass, we took travel out and put on another 20 lbs on the nose. THAT worked, the car went a 1.10 60', 3.02 to the 330', and 4.63@151! Wow... We were really pumped after that one, and I KNEW the car had a 50 in it for sure. So next pass we put another 10 lbs in the nose, pulled travel down some more, another flat on the shocks and put a more aggressive ramp in it. It went 1.17 on the back tires but power wheeled again and had to pedal to a 4.81. Final qualifier the next day in the heat I attempted to better the 4.63 pass a little, and we spun. 1st Round of eliminations we backed it back down to what we thought was needed, but the nut behind the wheel had a brain fart and left before the tree dropped. To much adrenaline I suppose, going to have to work on that one a it. But all in all, we had a great time, enjoyed hanging out with a lot of friends, meet a bunch of new folks and put the car in the trailer running in one piece, can't complain about that at all.

Learned a lot about what the car wants with that sort of track so have plans for this off season to make it easier to work with next year. One of the first updates is the addition of a front travel sensor - we have a ride height sensor, but that doesn't show actual shock travel and when the car hits the travel limiter, so going to add this lil' fella on the left front. Shocks are going back to Santhuff, they are wore out and no longer responding to changes at their tightness range where we need them to, so going to get those update and some fresh springs on the front. We'll probably do some changes to the engine and nitrous system this winter to try and eek out a bit more HP as well.