Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Manjimup time almost here.

Hi all

Well it has been a big fortnight since we last raced, I have not been so busy in all my life.

Anyway to the happenings inside the Crabbe shed.
We have Annette's car ready to go, completed late this afternoon after we headed down to the cave straight after work.
My car is sitting on stands with about 3 hours work before it is ready to go.
We have got some new wings to put together for spares as we somehow managed to sell our spare front wing by mistake with the JEI.
The wings will all be off to the powder coater later this week and finally there should be a spare in the Crabbe trailer.

Our container full of gear from the USA will be here by 30th November so when we get the final import charges I will advertise the tyres we have purchased and the cost, also the j and j for Jim in Carnarvon is in the container and the 358 we have for sale, we have 4 serious buyers for this engine all waiting for it to arrive so they can come check it out.
Annette has a new motor in there, it is one of the small budget motors Jimmy Naylor is trying to sell into our division, looking forward to see how it goes.

Manjimup is on this weekend, I am looking forward to seeing this track, they tell me it is frighteningly fast, some of the 410's have been clocked at above 200kms an hour down the straight, now that is quick.
We have about 14 cars going, should be a cracker of a meeting.

Hope to see you there.

Crabby



Monday, November 22, 2010

A Blog from our Narrogin racers.

THE VOICE OF ANOTHER BLOGGER

Hi All,

Out in the country you quite often miss out on the news and results of the club, so we always appreciate the effort that goes into the service Crabby provides. To break up the monotony that can be had by listening to the same voice over and over we thought on occasion we would keep the club up to date on the results at our local track Narrogin.

It may now be a few weeks since the LSA hostiles invaded our patch of dirt, but the response and feedback we are still getting back from the public is impressive. To say the display of racing was nothing short of awesome is an understatement. We as locals thoroughly enjoyed the competiion and revelled in fact that we had a full field of cars to keep us on our game. Thank you to all those who put in an effort to travel to our club and make it such a good meet.

We have only had one meeting since then on Saturday 20th. Unfortunately only 2 cars showed up, one of which we welcome back after a 2 year hiatus. Young Mr Bell certainly proved though that he still knows how to pedal a car. For us it became a test and tune day, with laps proving invaluable as we nutted out some new setups.

Our next meeting is the Christmas Cup meeting on the 18th of December, all are welcome.

Quick note before I go on the quality of racing amongst the Limiteds. I had the pleasure of attending Geraldton Speedway on the13th of this month, as I was up there for the harvest. I must say that on the night there were only 4 cars but they put on some of the best racing I have seen in a long time. Nows thats not a go at the other division that was racing at the time, but you 4 are a credit to the LSA, to put on a show that good with in tight racing and passing was an enjoyable spectacle, Well Done.

Regards
BMS

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Open state title.

Good morning all,

We headed to Bunbury last night to watch the 410's State title.

It was a good meeting with a small rain interruption before the dashes.

Strangely there was only one restart during the heats when Darren Mewitt had a biking moment and spun, that was the last heat.

Young Jason Kendrick was a man on a mission in the feature, he held second until about 3 laps to go when he had a small mistake on turn 2 allowing Shaun Bradford and Ken Sartori through, although Ken soon had a coming together with Bradford which saw Ken junk the car in a big way, Bradford sustained no damage and lined up outside of Kerry Madsen for the restart.

Kerry Madsen won from Shaun Bradford with Jason Kendrick third.

I must say the 92.9 cars looked quick all night.

We are running Manjimup next Saturday, hope to see you there.

Crabby



Saturday, November 13, 2010

Racer update - Carolyn Armstrong

Hi all,

Carolyn was at the Fast Friday meeting last night so I took the time to have a chat about her plans for this season.

Carolyn's car was destroyed in a big accident in Geraldton last season.
She has slowly been fixing her car and hopes to return to racing in the not too distant future.

The only thing needed to ensure a speedy return is an engine, if you are keen to see another fast lady driver on the track and would like to supply a motor you can contact Carolyn through the limited sprintcar club.

Subject to getting a motor Carolyn would like to run the big races starting with the Sprintcar Muster through to the Armstrong Cup.


Crabby





Fast Friday wrap up.

Good evening all,

It has been a big day down at the shed, many visitors have come through to say hello.
Team Gavin/Jen Davis came up from Bunbury to pick up some wings for Darren Higgins in their new transporter, this transporter is going to be a nice unit when completed, it is huge, we chewed the fat over some ways to get the new motor back up to speed, it was a little disappointing last night, I reckon it was at about half the power it was before it went away to get rebuilt, we came up with a few ideas we will try for Manjimup on the 27th.
Then we had the Wodj's come in to talk turkey over some parts for Wodj's retransformation from shed to track take 2, although I must point out I am not inferring he is a shed racer in any way, he is slowly putting the car together as his budget allows, a sensible approach.
Then we had Chris Dicker from Mandurah Bolt Supplies turn up, Chris was wrapped with the performance of Michael Armstrong last night, Michael was on the pace all night and would have won but for a few unfortunate bangs which damaged his steering, Chris is also one of the sponsors of the upcoming trip East with Kris Coyle and also a sponsor of the SJ Crushing team, so Mandurah Bolt Supplies had a 1/2/3 result for the night, not a bad start to his year.

So to the results.
Heat 1 was on a track slowly hooking up, it was greasy during hot laps.
Glen Oliver was off pole with yours truly out of 2, Glen drove off into the distance with daylight a close second, then yours truly with Ian Dhu finishing 3rd.
Heat 2 had the 2 Watson Express 10's off pole and looked like they would run away with the heat, Watto pulled out early and Dhuy led the way for most of the heat with Michael Armstrong in hot pursuit, as they came up on Annette to lap her they baulked allowing Glen the chance to work his way under both of them, with the finishing order being Glen Oliver first, Ian Dhu second and Michael Armstrong third.
The feature saw the limiteds running with the 360's but we will only deal with the Limiteds.
Glen Oliver was off pole with Michael Armstrong off outside pole, Ian Dhu was off inside row 2 with tours truly off outside row row 2.
The track had absolutely no drive off the bottom of turns 3 and 4 so the inside row was never going to get away quickly, Michael Armstrong got the jump on Glen and I followed Michael away, it felt like we were pulling away as I could not hear another car close by, by mid race though the yellows came on, this brought out the double row restart and I was forced to start on the inside, at the start I watched Michael Armstrong drive away as I spun up in the slick area of the track, soon after Glen slid by me and all I could do was watch them up ahead.
Glen managed to get through into first as Michael sustained some damage in an incident with a 360 which caused him to slow dramatically on the last lap, Michael finished second with yours truly third, and this was the way the points went for the night as well.

Good luck to the 320's and the Limiteds in Geraldton tonight, if you read this Sunday and you have the results then let me know so I can post them.

Crabby


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Will the weather hold out for Fast Friday.

Good evening all,

Well late Thursday evening and I think we are close.

Annette's car is ready and I hope she brings some spare underwear as this engine is no slug, she will be hard as for people to get past this week.
My car is ready but I had to put the wrong exhausts on as the new mufflers are a bit trick but hit the nerf bars, we ran out of time to fit them up so the rusty ones have gone back on.
The engine fired up straight away and other than some idle adjustment it ran sweet, fuel pressures are good for a change, so I guess we are in for a slow run around Kwinana to run it in then get it ready for Manjimup on the 27th.

It looks as though we will have 8 Limiteds running assuming Watto is running with us, should make for a good nights racing.
It will be good to see how far some of the new guys have come as we started at Kwinana first meet this season.

I believe the field will be
Dhuy, Annette, Shane Webster, Shane Maskel, Michael Armstrong, Glen Oliver, myself and maybe Watto.
Not to much missing in the way of speed in that list.

Hope to see you there.

Crabby


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Tuesday night and still going hard in the cave.

Hi all,

Well at the end of work in the cave tonight we still have a way to go.
Annette's car needs some exhaust clamps on the mufflers and then firing up, check fuel pressures and fit up a new air cleaner, not a lot and we hope to have hers done early Wednesday afternoon, my car still awaits a new fuel pressure gauge and the mufflers clamping up and it too will be ready.
We are short on tires and rims, we used to have 4 spare right rears and now we are down too 1 for 3 cars, hard too believe that when people use your gear it is so hard to get it back, one was borrowed nearly 2 years ago and then the person just made it too hard to get it back, now we seem to have another that looks lost forever, makes you wonder why you let people use any of your gear.
We fitted up new tires this evening as Bunbury just chewed up all we had, the Davis boys used up about 7 tires between them as well.

We have around 7 cars racing at Kwinana this Friday possibly more, not bad for a non club meet, looking forward to running the motor in ready for a run at Manjimup on the 27th November, we have never raced there but believe it will be a balls to the wall track, we are really looking forward to it.

Catch you

Crabby



Monday, November 8, 2010

Nearly ready again.

Hi all,

Well after getting to the cave at 3pm we have slaved and have removed Annette's motor, cleaned her car, taken the motor from my car, put it into Annette's car, got Psycho and put it into my car, got my car ready to just put in a new fuel gauge and fire it up, after I change a couple of rear tires of course, as we cannot start the car unless we get a few wheels and tires to put on it.
Annette's car has the engine bolted in and only needs the radiator plumbed up and it will be ready to go as well.

Thanks to Jarrod and Chris from Mandurah Bolt supplies we are going to be ready by Tuesday night, then we can rest.

The chassis for our Speedweek trip leave Melbourne tomorrow so we should be looking at starting to assemble cars from next week, then we will be real busy.

Catch you

Crabby



Bunbury another great weekends racing.

Hi all,

Bunbury was another good meeting for the club but was a little disappointing in terms of car count.

We had 7 members turn up to race and as usual put on a first class show with some very tight and entertaining racing.

Heat 1 saw Gavin off pole and yours truly on the outside, Gavin got away to a good start and led through out, I followed him home in second with Todd third.
Todd had a spin during the heat and was collected by new member David Claydon who has moved down from the North and looks like he is going to be at the pointy end.
Heat 2 was Chris Ackland off pole and yours truly again on outside pole, Chris got away to a quick start and I was chasing hard, Chris spun in the first few laps and I led the restart away, I was out to a comfy lead and greeted the white flag looking like a winner only to spin coming off turn 2, I managed to keep it going and finished 3rd to Todd and Gavin.
Heat 3 saw Chris Ackland take a comfortable win ahead of yours truly with Gavin 3rd.

Going into the feature the positions were,
Annette Crabbe off pole/Chris Ackland outside pole/Steve Crabbe inside row 2/Todd Davis outside row 2/Gavin Davis inside row 3 and Mark Miller outside row 3.
Chris Ackland stayed untroubled out front with Todd and yours truly chasing hard to find a way past, Annette had engine dramas and pulled out after the first few laps of the feature.

Highlights;
Mark Miller has come out to play although with a big engine while he waits for a Limited motor.
Darren Higgins finished a race in his car but still has a few teething issues.
Chris "Mr Smooth" Ackland again was hard to stay up with.
Annette continues to get on the pace although the lowlight was her engine drama in the feature, which sees a lot of midnight oil being put into the Crabbe workshop lamps for us to burn changing motors.
Todd and Gavin are still right up there poking their noses underneath anyone who even slightly gets off the gas.
And last but not least is me, who has found some speed and is looking forward to keeping on moving up and being able to harness some of the power the 14 deg engines make.

Ahh Fast Friday bring it on. Fast Friday is not a club meet on the 12th November but there are a few of us going for the run, about 6 to 8 cars have said they are going.

Catch you

Crabby

Friday, November 5, 2010

Friday night and can you believe it "we are ready"

Good evening all,

Well if everyone shows up at Bunbury who have nominated we will have another 14 cars ready to rumble.

Team SJCrushing are packed and ready to go, only have to mow the lawn in the morning and then we are off.

I must correct a small error from my Narrogin blog, BT did not come off the infield on the corner, the whole incident is on YouTube and clearly shows we came together in the first half of the straight, so I withdraw my comments.

Hope we see a lot of spectators at Bunbury, we have been putting on a show at all our meetings this year and it is well worth the trip to come and watch.

So good luck to all this week, wherever you are racing, bring it on.

Crabby



Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Octobers blog results.

Hi all

Do you know each time you come to this site you activate a counter, it checks if you have been here before and also a total number of visits.

It is mind blowing each month how many people visit.

In October we had 995 visits from 368 different people.
This is an average of 32 people per day reading or checking for updates.

The point of the above is not to gloat, it is to point out what a valuable tool it can be, why not send in some info on what you and your crew are up too, perhaps mention your sponsors, even what you plan to do and meetings you will run this year, if you are a club member and just run at the country tracks why not send in your results or any funny happenings, it would be good to keep people informed of your progress.

Some food for thought.

Crabby



No the Crabbe motor is not for sale.

Hi all,

I have had a couple of calls today about Pshyco being for sale, the answer is no it is not, but yes it is pictured on Racing Junk and yes it is a picture of my car.

Jimmy Naylor is just using the pictures for advertising.

On the carby front, a few 360 guys and some limited people have asked about those, currently the best deal seems to be a Quick Fuel Industries carb from Chevpower, but check around to get the best deal, but I am sure Chev power will do a great deal for you, manifolds is another area, there are some very trick manifolds on the market at some low prices, check out JEGS web site then get one of the local boys, and again I recommend Chev Power to order one of the good ones from the US for you, it is cheaper to get parts direct but freight costs a lot if you just order small stuff and the economy is not there, but get in now as about dollar for dollar makes good buying.

Crabby



Monday, November 1, 2010

Female racers.

Good evening all,

I was reading the latest SRN today and saw an article on Brisbane Speedway bringing a female racer into the country to race there.

It got me thinking about Annette racing and then Sarah Zeminuk and then Stacey Chisolm and then Caroline Armstrong and then "What is going on here"? We must have the most female racers in any single club/division in Australia, and all are capable of being fast, me thinks it's time to retire before I am outnumbered.
Seriously though what a great advert for our club, bring on more girls.

Crabby