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Rain, Fellowship, Food, Gremlin, in Texas

Team SVS traveled to the Lonestar State of Texas over this past weekend to compete at Lonestar Speedway in Kilgore, TX with the General Tire sponsored "Cutting Edge" Ford.

Our travels to the event allowed us to see how wide the great Mississippi had grown out of her banks when we crossed in Vicksburg, MS early Friday morning. Mother nature also decided to show her strength in Kilgore on Friday night right before show time as the event was canceled due to rain.

We didn't let the rain slow us down, because if it rains out a session you can be sure we are going to find somewhere to go eat. Andy Wilkes and wife Betty who are family friends and hunting buddy of team member Michael Chandler came over to the event from Monroe, Louisiana to watch the show and fellowship. After the rain out we all headed out (including Keith and Ricky Long, Keith's grandson Mason, Gary and Eric Varner),  to the local favorite Bodacious Restaurant for some great Texas style Bar-b-que, potato salad, pinto beans, and some much needed Sweet Tea. Some in the bunch could had done without the pinto beans. Ha!

Saturday brought sunshine and a more promising outlook for the event. However, eating was still on everyone's mind. Long time pulling friend from New Mexico "Sonny Martinez" treated our group to some wonderful Fajita's. Then to top it all off "Charlie HInes" with the "Runnin Wild Texas Style" 4wd brought out Crawl fish, Boiled Shrimp, Fried Flounder, Corn on the cob, Hush puppy's, and more. WOW !!! Let me tell you they make it spicy in Texas. We had to make a special trip to Dairy Queen after all that to cool down the tongue. As always our travels are as much about the people we meet and get to fellowship more so than the competition.

Now on to the competition. The General Tire "Cutting Edge" had drawn the 11th hook position for the show. PPL had done a great job in preparing the track after several inches of rains fell the previous night. This dirt was red but more sandy than the clay we had experienced in Saluda a few weeks earlier. While warming up the GT "Cutting Edge" in the pits the injector seemed to be sticking and causing for a less than smooth throttle response. We actually thought it was more of the clutch pack being too tight and we knew we could overcome that when hooked to the sled.

During the class competition, everyone was running down the left hand sideline. Team Nelson and Team Sullivan were really showing everyone how to get it done. Finally it was our turn. We decided to run the same path as the others. Jordan Nelson had just taken the lead right ahead of us so we felt like it was our best move. When we fired the engine and I drove out to the track the truck just took off and I couldn't stop it without holding the brakes. The throttle had jumped to high idle and I needed help from crew to slow it down because the throttle wouldn't return to normal position. When I went to back up to sled it did it again. We really should have dropped to last and looked the problem over more carefully. I thought that once I hooked to the sled I could over come the problem. Unfortunately I could not. The throttle cable was actually breaking down and loosing all its smooth travel. When I tried to easily drive the truck out of the hole, it instantly went to high idle and lost any chance of a smooth transition (what we like to call blowing the tires off it) and in this level of competition you have very little chance of being competitive without a smooth hole shot.  I would say that we were lucky to go as far down the track as we did.

This is one of those instances when we should have dropped and tried again at the end of the class after figuring out the problem. Sometimes you just get so geared up to compete that good judgment doesn't seem to be something that is thought about. We had a bad spark plug wire bite us at Saluda, SC and now a faulty throttle cable in Texas. Hopefully we have all the Gremlins behind us and will have better luck at our next event.

Below is a photo right before we fired up to compete from our onboard camera. We accidentally hit the option to take a photo instead of record. If it had recorded it would have been entertaining to watch all the drama just getting backed up to the sled, much less the poor run.

As always we enjoy the traveling and fellowshiping with great friends no matter where the sport takes us or how well we do. Thanks to everyone for a great weekend and a good time. We hope to be back in Kilgore in 2012.