Liquid Quiker - Oklahoma City 2009

Oklahoma City, OK June 2010

THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES:

We finally got everything out of the shop and loaded into the trailer to make our way to Oklahoma City for our first race June 11-13. I had some back surgery go wrong and ended up not being able to drive the truck, so we recruited Ross Aikman of Big “A” Performance along with Mike Robbins, the new pilot to drive the rig while I rode in the back. Ross, by the way is now our truck driver and new crew member, that will teach him. Mike’s father Eric and Sam Edwards along with Randal followed us out in Eric’s motor home.

All went pretty good until we got 10 miles out from the track and we dropped the drive shaft out of the truck. So we called a wrecker and got the truck and trailer towed to the race site. Of course when we got there the rig with the tow truck was too large to get through the Dell computer parking lot so we had to drop the trailer, tow the truck then come back and get the trailer. Dell Computer agreed to let SDBA use their property for the pits, our assumption was we would be on pavement, in reality we were in another dust bowl just a littler closer to the track. Fortunately we were up wind next to the dumpster so we only brought back a half a ton of dirt verse a full ton like last year. I don’t believe the wind ever stops blowing in Oklahoma.

Friday morning we put Mike Robbins in the water to get his first leg of his license upgrade to fuel. Roger Way and the boys did not put a lot of power in the motor so we had to explain to Mike that he might not see anything but water for a few hundred feet, but the boat would go straight. Imagine getting into a fuel machine for the first time and driving blind for a bit.

All went well, Mike did a great job and the crew serviced the motor for the second leg of Mike’s license upgrade. With the wind that did not happen till Saturday morning. Roger talked SDBA into letting us run before the class since we were worried about the wind and the water was looking a little questionable. So we put Mike in the boat for his first full track pass, he drove thru bad water, the boat handled well as usual and Mike ran 217.17 mph in 4.048 seconds and got his license. GOOD JOB! Not too many fuel drivers get licensed in 2 passes. The boat has to get from A to B with fuel boat numbers and the driver has to perform. We made a qualifying pass with the class Saturday afternoon and qualified 224.28mph in 4.042 seconds. Not too bad for the first time out and everyone was smiling.

Sunday morning we were paired with Hot Licks and son of gun if Mike didn’t win his first round of fuel boat eliminations. Second round we were paired against Toxic Rocket and we had some motor issues that caused us to show up late and there was Toxic Rocket in the water in the left lane. We had told SDBA and Lucas Oil on Friday that Toxic Rocket was not going straight and should not be allowed in the left lane. You would think that after Toxic Rocket took out the finish line photocells when the boat veered right they would listen but did not.

Our decision was do we run and take the risk if being run into or not to run. We foolishly decided to run and sure enough at the end of the run Toxic ran into us even after Mike drove as far to right as he dared without running into the rip rap lined banks. We lost the round but Mike did his job on the start line, we just did not solve all the issues and ran out of time.

Now in our opinion Toxic should have been disqualified for running into us but that did not happen. Lucas Oil and SDBA have since added some center buoys past the finish line and changed the rules – Bumping is not racing in a fuel boat or any other boat - overall we would have been happy with just getting Mike’s license and going out first round. The weekend results were good. Mike will be a world class driver with a little more seat time.

We packed up and headed back to Spring City after having the drive shaft on the truck repaired. Unfortunately we were 288 miles out when the new drive shaft came out from under the truck and took part of the truck with it. Fortunately it did not hit the trailer but once again we found ourselves being towed.

Ross had a tow truck come and get the truck and trailer so Randal and I stayed behind and everyone else headed for the house. Strange that Ross was the driver both times the shaft came out, but it could have been much worse.

We would like to thank our local sponsors for this race:

Holiday Inn Hotel – Oklahoma City Airport

Rib Crib BBQ & Grill

Augusta Southern Nationals