Wow! It’s been more than a month since an update. And I haven’t even commented on the shootout or anything! So, it’s time for one :-)

Shootout News: The DSM shootout this year was the most exciting shootout I remember since.. ’98 or ’99. It was just plain nuts this year. Brent Rau brought out his 2G to lay down some exhibition passes, and ran a 7.00 at 199mph. It was crazy to see that car lay down passes. I love how the wheels come back up when he shifts into second gear ;-) It’s also really interesting to see the subtle little things that most people don’t notice about race cars. I could talk about that all day with the pro guy’s cars, no doubt.

Speaking of Pro guys, Mark and I wandered over to John Shepherd’s trailer and checked out his car. I am amazed every year (over and over) with how clean his car is. I mean, here’s a guy who races all the races, and you could literally eat off any part of his engine bay. John’s car is beautifully put together. I have some pictures somewhere around here – I think they’re in the DSM shootout 2006 pictures directory on my site. On top of that, I got to meet Shep for the first time (and I’ve been into the dsm “scene” since 1998) and we got to shoot the shit with Shep for about an hour and a half. I also bought a fiberglass hood for the Talon from him. The hood has the headlight covers integrated into it, so it’ll simplify the front end, and save me from having to add supports and/or weld the headlight covers to the body. It’ll look good when it’s all done. It was also loads of fun to see Shep lay down 7 second passes. That man is crazy :-) Kudos to him though – all his hard work is paying off.

On top of all that stuff, Rick helped me put the hood on the car, and Mark and I have spent some more time working on the Transmission tunnel. Hopefully we’ll be able to spend some time on the car soon, but with a marriage coming up at the end of October (mine!), it’s going to be hard to squeeze things in. Oh yeah, I also bought a set of 1600cc injectors for the Talon, and I also bought a Mark Williams yoke for the driveshaft. I had to buy a new yoke, because the Dedenbear tailshaft requires a smaller diameter yoke (The spec is like .020″ smaller than the standard yoke dimension) in order for the driveshaft to fit into the tailshaft. So, $200 and a week later, I now have the right yoke :-) Now, I just need to put it on the driveshaft.