PHOTOS: JEREMY PATTERSON, JAMES SISK |
tered to qualify eighth in Outlaw Drag Radial with a 4.324 at 182.55 hit. In RvW, Stack picked up a win in the first round of eliminations, but couldn’ t get past Joe Albrecht in round two. Unfortunately, in ODR, a wire came off his transbrake at the start of eliminations and he went out, but his determination was renewed and he vowed not to quit.
“ We took what we learned from changing the suspension in Valdosta, and Chris [ Terry ] cut off the old four-link and replaced it with new stuff with holes in different spots,” Stack elaborates of the extensive testing trials the team undertook.
Next, he headed out to Memphis International Raceway in Tennessee in March to run Limited Drag Radial at the Outlaw Street Car Reunion IV.“ I was real excited. I thought we were on the right track and it would turn around, but it was about normal,” Stack recounts of the
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“ I was determined to figure something out last year. In 2016, I had lots of motor trouble and didn’ t race much – it was about as bad as much 2010 season, short of sticking it in the wall,”
weekend where he qualified eighth on a 4.263 at 182.18 trip.“ It would smoke the tires, then run good, then smoke the tires … and it’ s hard to win like that. I was a little down and out after, because we thought we had found something and it didn’ t help much.”
After Memphis, Stack took the initiative to switch to the new Mickey Thompson 295 drag radial tires.“ My car looks ridiculous on 275s, but that’ s what everything was going towards if you didn’ t run Radial vs the World,” he declared,“ so I was happy to be able
to switch to the 295 tire. It just fits the car better and I’ ve had a lot of luck with it.”
One month later, and with the larger tires on board, Stack headed to his home track, Huntsville Dragway, for the Radial Fest Spring Edition event. Focusing on the LDR series, Stack was fearing a repeat of his Memphis performance.“ Pooch had been running real good and I was over there bugging him, and Josh Ledford told me some stuff to fix,” says Stack, grateful of the help he received from his
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friends.“ Everything Ledford said needed to happen was happening, so I asked him to look at some data and he showed me and Chris some minor tuning things we weren’ t aware of.” Already in eliminations by that time, the changes weren’ t a miraculous game-changer for Stack, but they definitely helped and he saw improvements.
Next on the LDR schedule was the Prize Fight Round 4 race at Ohio Valley Dragway in Kentucky. On his first three hits, Stack smoked the tires and his Monte Carlo didn’ t make it past the 60-foot mark.“ I was so over it!” he laughs of his frustrations at the time. True to form, though, he kept plugging away and finally made it down the track to qualify second with a best run of 4.242 at 189.70.“ After that, we went down every pass the rest of the race, although I got out-run in the semi-finals, simple as that.”
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THRILL SHOW |
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Despite relatively stock components making up the car itself, Stack’ s“ Thrillbilly” is powered by a twinturbocharged 572 ci big-block Chevy, with a Turbo 400 2-speed transmission and PTC converter transfering the power to Mickey Thompson’ s new 295 drag radials. |
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PHOTOS: IAN TOCHER |