A post season release from highly reputed Alberta-based X275 class racer – Neil Richards….
Our final race recap of the 2019 season unfortunately does not have as happy of an ending as the rest did this year.
We went to Las Vegas for the (15th edition) Street Car Super Nationals with one goal and that was simply to continue on our undefeated streak of 2019.
Unfortunatley the race gods had a different idea for us. It started out with a bunch of rain causing us not to be able to test the new converter stator we swapped in before heading down and pushed the whole testing process back a few days. When the rain finally stopped we realized the converter was not going to do what we needed to. So at 7 am with the help from my awesome team we got the trans out and made our changes to the converter and got ready for qualifying. Thanks to Dusty Bradford with twisted 6 racing/PTC and John Hutchinson of Hutch transmission service for the advice.
In qualifying we made a few solid passes and ran a 4.49 to put us #4 behind 3 of the fastest x275 cars anywhere and only .5 mph back from #1 and we were truly on a very mild tune up on that pass so moving into the next day we had some pretty high hope’s.
Next up came the last round of qualifying in “small tire no time” and we went into the tune up early to get after it, the car was a fair bit faster early then the 4.49 and was about to be on a decent pass until thecar drove out into a power wheelie and I ninja kicked it a few times to make sure it would come down gentle. When it did come down it unloaded the rear tires and spun up into the rev limiter at 9200 causing a severe backfire I pulled over right away to make sure I was not oiling down the killer prepared Kurt Johnsons radial surface.
As we were pushing it back to the pits we knew something was not right so we got back and instantly realized it had broke the 40 spline spool in half.
Once again in comes the killer team and group of friends we were able to borrow parts from Jordan Lazic and the gen 3 crew after our spares were not able to be used. We worked till 2 am on our backs in the cold to get the car all back together and figured we were ready for round 1. Curt Thompson and Adel Abougoush took care of another parts run for us and we got the diff filled up with oil and went to warm up for round 1…….
This is when it all changed for us, it was right then we realized we had an engine problem and had a dead hole. Further diagnosing led us to believe it either hurt a head gasket or possibly nipped a piston so yet again one more time it was all hands on deck to get it apart as we had spare pistons in the trailer and could still make round 1.
Once we removed the head we found the fire ring was burnt and it had melted the deck surface, with not enough available time to repair that put an end to our hope for a SCSN win. So although we didn’t technically lose a single round in competition in 2019 we were unable to make the call and had to go on to support some of our other #teamnorth brothers.
This was a devastating blow as this is 2 years in a row the cylinder heads have left us out before round 1 at SCSN.
I do have a simple promise and its that we will be back and we will show these million dollar guys that we are not a team to be taken lightly.
So although it was not the ending we wanted we did still have a killer year including:
- Not a single round loss in competition
- 3 #1 qualifiers
- Top mph at 4 races
- 4 track records
- Zero parts failures (until Las Vegas – LOL!)
For that I just need to take a minute and thank all the wonderful people and sponsors who support us in our quest to be the best. I apologize to anyone I miss, it’s a loooonnnggg list and we could never do this without you. From covering fuel costs to helping repair or buy parts to simply buying a hat or cheering us on from your couch we truly 🧡 you all!
Posted by Neil Richards