On Saturday September 20th, myself and about 200 others got to go bracket drag racing at Firebird Motorsports Park in Chandler. The big prize at this race was an NHRA Wally trophy awarded in each class along with whatever the cash purse was. I’ve been bracket racing for over 40 years and winning a Wally hasn’t happened yet, and it didn’t on that Saturday either. I was racing my brand-new-to-me, 1997 Chevy
S-10 pickup truck. These great little trucks came with a four cylinder or V-6 engine. A young Cadillac dealer mechanic named Michael started building this truck fi ve years ago in New Mexico. Amazingly, it checks almost every box on my bracket racing vehicle wish list, including the 5.3 liter LS V-8 engine with a bigger Texas Speed roller cam, headers, a strong and reliable old school Turbo 400 three speed automatic transmission, 3000 stall torque converter, B&M shifter, and the full Cal-Tracks rear drag racing suspension. I bought the truck in July, so l had plenty of time to get it ready for this September race.

Michael told me that he ran the truck at a Friday Night Drags event last year, and it ran a 12.70, but the tech officials told him the truck needed a rear mounted master On-Off switch, a ground wire attached to the fuel cell, and a neutral safety switch. I’ve said it
many times in this column, that I’m not a good mechanic, but l felt that l could handle those three safety requirements. So, in 2025 where do you go to learn these things??? That’s right YOUTUBE. I’m pretty sure that l watched several hours about installing a neutral safety switch, so l dove in there with my notes and wired up the little B&M micro switch to my B&M shifter. With the shifter in Park, the engine fired right up. I shut it off, pulled the shifter down into drive, hit the key and nope it wouldn’t crank, yahooo I’d done it. OOPS l spoke too soon, because with the engine running, l pulled it into drive and the engine quit. The wire l had tapped into was not the correct wire. Now I’m totally lost on what to do, so I decided to wire up that rear mounted master On-Off switch. Again, watched videos, thought l had it done, engine would not start in the Off position, but it would not shut the engine off when running, which is the whole reason for having this safety switch. My friend Tim came to my rescue, and after a few hours sweating in my hot garage, the little Chevy truck has a working neutral safety switch and rear mounted working On-Off switch. Thanks again Tim!!

Now that the truck was race ready, l needed to get myself race ready. One of the things I’ve struggled with In my entire life of drag racing, is consistency leaving the starting line, which is critical especially in bracket racing. I’ve had more red lights and more late reaction times than any human should have, but reality is reality. My latest strategy was to shallow stage, and say 1 2 3 4 GO when the first of three starting lights flashed. I had practiced that procedure multiple times at stop lights while driving, but for some reason my brain must have left my body at the drag strip, and after two horribly late reaction times l knew that wasn’t going to work, so l decided to deep stage and leave as the third starting light flashed. That strategy seemed to be good, because my last three reaction times were .010, .026, and .014 all three were pretty good. Elapsed time (ET) consistency is also critical in bracket racing. On my 2nd and 3rd time trial runs the S-10 ran 13.479 then another 13.479 WOW that’s amazing identical to the thousandths of a second, but on the 4th and fi nal time trial run it went 13.338. In bracket racing you have to make a prediction of what ET you think your vehicle will run when racing. Those back to back 13.479 ET’s made that prediction easy, but the quicker 13.338 now made it tough, do l dial close to the quicker ET or closer to the slower ETs??? I chose 13.34 ET for the Sportsman first round, but it only went 13.45 and l lost. For first round of Pro l increased my shift point to 6300 RPM and stayed with the 13,34 dial-in. I had a nice .026 reaction time in Sportsman and a really nice .014 RT in Pro, but the truck ran 13,31 and l lost on a breakout, meaning l went quicker than my 13.34 dial-in. The dial-in is why a 13 second vehicle can race a much faster or slower vehicle based on the dial-in, the slower vehicle simply gets to leave first so that theoretically both vehicles on a perfect run would reach the finish line at the same time. In that perfect run example, the better reaction time off of the starting line would decide the winner.

I was excited to go racing and had a great time driving my last ever race vehicle. YES YES I’ve said that many times in the past, but at age 74 I need to stick with this little orange S10 truck. I have to send special thanks to Michael who built the truck and to Tim that got my safety requirements sorted out. And a very special thanks to fellow Team Firebird racer AJ Crader who helped me on Saturday fix a problem that came up with my B&M shifter. Me and AJ and about 160 other Firebird team members along with hundreds of other Div. 7 race track team members will be racing at the NHRA Div. 7 Summit Racing Series Bracket Finals on October 2nd to the 5th right back here at Firebird.