Sick Week 2022 in FL

I saw a super sketchy spitfire with a 5.3 and a turbo and it started to give me really bad ideas. 

In reply to MrChaos :

Damn that Caprice is a sexy machine.

Day 3 was a tough day for Cleetus and his gang. The El Camino lost a cylinder on its first pass, had some sort of weird valve issue that they got sorted with only 5 minutes to go, then blew the tires off. Ruby had a phantom scramble button blast it to a 7.7x in the 8.50 class and had to make a last minute 8.6xx that bumped them back. The "stock" Marauder backfired both runs and ran in the high-11s on a 10.90 dial-in.

NickD said:

In reply to MrChaos :

Damn that Caprice is a sexy machine.

Day 3 was a tough day for Cleetus and his gang. The El Camino lost a cylinder on its first pass, had some sort of weird valve issue that they got sorted with only 5 minutes to go, then blew the tires off. Ruby had a phantom scramble button blast it to a 7.7x in the 8.50 class and had to make a last minute 8.6xx that bumped them back. The "stock" Marauder backfired both runs and ran in the high-11s on a 10.90 dial-in.

Cleet really needs to invest in a an actual engine guy instead of all these random "tuners". He goes through more engines than an F1 team and all of them are their own fault and could have been prevented. It's hard to watch.

I really like these kind of events. However, I do think that they should be required to go down the track with all of their kit. If that includes a trailer, then so be it. 

Cause "Street Cars".

Javelin said:

NickD said:

In reply to MrChaos :

Damn that Caprice is a sexy machine.

Day 3 was a tough day for Cleetus and his gang. The El Camino lost a cylinder on its first pass, had some sort of weird valve issue that they got sorted with only 5 minutes to go, then blew the tires off. Ruby had a phantom scramble button blast it to a 7.7x in the 8.50 class and had to make a last minute 8.6xx that bumped them back. The "stock" Marauder backfired both runs and ran in the high-11s on a 10.90 dial-in.

Cleet really needs to invest in a an actual engine guy instead of all these random "tuners". He goes through more engines than an F1 team and all of them are their own fault and could have been prevented. It's hard to watch.

This one was weird. Engine ran fine on Day 1. Made the drive on Day 2 and checked the valve lash and everything was fine. Made his first run on Day 3 and it lost a cylinder part way through the run. Pulled it back in the pits and it had no compression on one cylinder. Then they checked the other cylinders and came back to the dead hole and all of a sudden it had full compression, so they ended up calling the engine builder and he told them to lash all the valves again and retorque all the head bolts.

The other thing is, he's got a few too many pans in the fire. Between the track and the jet boats and all the other stuff. It seems like they sign up for an event, blow up all their stuff, repair it a week before the next event, do zero testing and then go out first round because of some gremlin, and then don't touch the car again until it's crunch time. Which, hey, I get it, he's busy, but then don't be going "Well, jeez, we all went out round 1, this really sucks." Either accept that you don't have the time to be competitive or park the jetboats and some of the other stuff and get the cars ready ahead of time and do a bunch of testing and troubleshooting.

I think the E36 M3 show is part of the show for Cleet and gang.

In reply to NickD :

Yeah...They lost me when they became full Jackass with everything they touched. Glad that he is making bank cause it is the Murican Dream, but its kinda thin soup.

So the 1320Video video explained what happened with Cleetus a little better and he kinda got screwed. One lane is prepped for drag radials and the other for slicks, and even though he's on drag radials and told the track worker that he was on radials, they stuck him in the slicks lane. It then shook the tire off on the launch. So, yeah, that sucks. Too get only one chance at a pass and then get put in the wrong lane is rough.

And, man, the poor PFISpeed guys. Jamie put his backup engine only for that e-gate to screw up again and spike the boost to 70+psi and it shut off and wouldn't turn over afterwards. And Brent's son Shane did a 1-2-1 shift on their turbo H22 AWD CRX and tore the ring gear off the flywheel and broke the oil pump.

The Roadkill guys hosed the clutch in their 3rd-gen, got one to install, tore it down and discovered it had the weirdo LT1 clutch and had to put it back together and run it on the slipping clutch and order the correct clutch. Did a 14.0 today.

I really like the Cleetus dynamic that has happened.

He gets successful and buys his own track (think he'll buy BMP too? It's right next door to the FF), then all of his buddies move to the area. Boostedboiz & PFI, the Vargas brothers, he boosted Cooper to his own channel with some success, Uncle Chet, Finnegan (whose channel was not doing great.

He's a man with a plan, dropped out of law school for this. 

As far a Sick Week...what did the GLH run for a time? I just saw it in Finnegan's vid with a Shelby Daytona but did not get a time. berkeleying love the guys for runing both of those cars in an event like this.

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

I can't be mad at him. He has fun all day with a lot of cool people and gets paid a lot of money to do it. 

NickD said:

And Brent's son Shane did a 1-2-1 shift on their turbo H22 AWD CRX and tore the ring gear off the flywheel and broke the oil pump.

I can't believe that car didn't end up in the wall, it lifted the rear tires off the ground when he missed that shift. 

And man some of this stuff is sketchy, driving down the street with a funny car cage around your head with no helmet or containment seat is just asking for a bad time if something ever happens. That and the Boostedboiz civic as cool as it is, those shoulder straps on his harness are going to do nothing if he goes into the wall at 150 mph with a stock seat and nothing to keep them in place.

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Don't forget he is part owner of motion raceworks too....

As far as bmp, I don't think it's on the table, yet. But they are in mutual agreement they need each other to succeed.

I like Cleet because he really comes across as a positive guy. You'll almost never hear him talk down to anyone, talk smack, blame people for problems publicly, maybe even if it was their fault. Wholesome content. Sam is also a chiller. BUENOS DIAAAZZZZZZZZ

fatallightning said:

I like Cleet because he really comes across as a positive guy. You'll almost never hear him talk down to anyone, talk smack, blame people for problems publicly, maybe even if it was their fault. Wholesome content. Sam is also a chiller. BUENOS DIAAAZZZZZZZZ

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I love Cleets and I watch all the videos. Just sometimes they're a little frustrating. The smart thing with him is he not only surrounds himself with good people, he uplifts those people's programs as well. Kevin and KSR, JH Diesel, Dr. Tune'Em All, FasterProms (back when they were friendlier), all the various people he interacts with he's also brought to the forefront of people's attention and forged a neat little network. When George was at FasterProms, he always had those little appearances that were a riot, so Cleetus put him in the limelight. Remember when Ty started there and didn't want to be on camera at all, and now he shoots lengthy videos of him doing all the fabwork and is in front of the camera quite a bit.  And, yeah, Sam is the best. I hope I'm as cool as him when I get old. I see quite a few people in the comments sections saying that if they were to win the Marauder giveaway, they'd take the $25k cash payout instead and tell Cleet to give the Marauder to Sam.

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Glh has ran a 10.70, 10.74, 11.64, and a 13.52

In reply to NickD :

I get what you're saying about prep though. Seems like they get too little shakedown before doing multiday drive and races. A single test day probably isn't enough for durability. Does make for good watching though. Kind of disappointed the ElCo seems to be such a challenge to get into the 6s, when on paper it was like, no problem!

Ranger50 said:

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Don't forget he is part owner of motion raceworks too....

As far as bmp, I don't think it's on the table, yet. But they are in mutual agreement they need each other to succeed.

I think that as long as Bradenton continues to play ball with him and his program, and by all indication they are, then there really isn't a need for him to own BMP, other than to bring it all under the same banner.

I'm curious to see if Freedom Factory becomes a Formula Drift venue. There's a lot of things leaning in that direction that make it seem likely: the current Florida venue of Orlando Speedworld is much derided by both fans and drivers, the Freedom Factory is hosting the grassroots drift league Clutchkickers this year, Cleetus is chummy with a bunch of the Formula Drift drivers (Vaughn Gittin Jr, Chelsea Denofa, Adam LZ), he's had the drift events and got Jerod DeAnda, the voice of Formula Drift, to come down and do the announcing for it, Cleetus is always chiming in on the livestreams of every Formula Drift round. There's definitely a lot of parallels (I go to Formula Drift events and see people wearing Cleetus and Freedom Factory merch everywhere), and I could see the Freedom Factory-hosted drift events and Clutchkickers being used as a trial run to see if it would work for Formula Drift.

Although Drag racing isnt my cup of tea, I really like these events. It's a great time to follow some of the team's vlogs.

The idea of these "street" cars having to do 100's of miles between passes makes the cars much more impressive.

fatallightning said:

In reply to NickD :

I get what you're saying about prep though. Seems like they get too little shakedown before doing multiday drive and races. A single test day probably isn't enough for durability. Does make for good watching though. Kind of disappointed the ElCo seems to be such a challenge to get into the 6s, when on paper it was like, no problem!

Part of the problem is it's such an extreme thing that the only way to really test durability is to do the event. No amount of drag strip testing can replicate the effects of 1000 miles of highway driving on parts not remotely meant for that. If you watch the more in depth coverage most of the really fast cars usually end up having at least one or two major-ish problems throughout an event like this (I mean the two fastest cars at the event dropped out before even getting to the first drive). And a lot of times they also struggle to get a good run in too. The leading C4 was in basically the same position of not really having a time on day three, they just managed to make their last second hail mary run stick.

That all said they absolutely could be doing more testing to have more knowledge on how to make the car work on track, which to their credit they have been trying to do a better job of, they just have too much other stuff going on to really do a good job of it.

NickD said:

 

Also, really impressive is that the guy who is leading the stick shift class, a 9.065 with a '65 GTO, is from Canada and doesn't have a truck and trailer. So he drove 3000 miles south from Canada, is running the event, and then is driving 3000 miles back home.

That's the way to do it! 

Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:

NickD said:

 

Also, really impressive is that the guy who is leading the stick shift class, a 9.065 with a '65 GTO, is from Canada and doesn't have a truck and trailer. So he drove 3000 miles south from Canada, is running the event, and then is driving 3000 miles back home.

That's the way to do it! 

Especially because he does it with gen-you-wine Pontiac power under the hood. No big block Chevy or LS motor there. It's a 517 cubic inch Pontiac engine with a big turbocharger (94mm, I believe he said) and a Tremec-based 6-speed. He hit an 8.7xx on Day 3

Went today and it was awesome! Met Newburn and flagged Finnegan down for a selfie. Finnegan was super cool and enthusiastic to take a selfie. Saw Dave Frieburger run a 13.9 in the GTA with nitrous. A ton of other amazing cars. I must say that Newburn is an awesome dude who was very willing to chat and shake hands. 

The only thing I didn't get to see was Derek from VGG run Independence. Man, that car is so much rattier in person than the pictures make it look. 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

Yes, that triumph is horrible upclose... but it did run 10.29.

I went and thoroughly baked in the 80F Florida sunshine in a black T-shirt for a few hours of complete awesomesauce.

I spent most of my time with Mike Jano with the rotary powered FC in the stick shift class. Great guy to chill with along with his co pilot Mike.

So much motorized eye candy....