The Will Parsons Project

I guess I’ll start where I left off last, the end of XDC Texas. My motor had knock and we only had 18 days before we had to leave for Arizona. It didn’t take us long to get the motor out of the car and into pieces. We determined that the cause for the rod knock was due to the ancient oil pump finally giving up. There was some minor damage on the crank and rods from the bearing failure but other than that the block looked fine. There wasn’t enough time to get them repaired so we robbed the crank and rods out of another motor and started reassembling it. We didn’t have all of the parts until the weekend before we were supposed to leave. In a mad scramble me and my dad got everything together and in the car on Tuesday night. I made one pull up and down the street on Wednesday night and everything thing seemed to be ok. We loaded the corolla on the three car and hit the road for Arizona around 3 am thursday morning.

After a blown tire and a ruined air filter we finally arrived in Phoenix around midnight on Thursday. Chelsea scored us a really nice house to stay in so we cleaned up and crashed out for the night. In the morning we headed to the track, unloaded the cars, and got the pits put together. I got my car warmed up threw my suit on and headed out on track. On the first lap the throttle cable broke so I headed right back into the pits. My dad made the fix real quick and I was back out. The car was running great on this track, and I was laying down some good runs. The first turn was sort of blind followed by a long transition to an outer clip down into a tight “s” turn at the end. I was having a blast and just kept driving until they finally shut us down for the night. We were all hanging out in the pits when a dust storm blew in and destroyed most of Mike’s pop up tents. After an hour of repairing tents we loaded up and headed back to the house to get ready for saturday.

Saturday morning I was feeling good about the way practice had gone the day before and I was looking forward to the day’s competition. After a quick breakfast we loaded up and headed to the track. My dad and I quickly went over my car and everything seemed good so i headed out for the morning practice. My first run went well, but the car started to break up towards the end of the track. I lined up for my second pass and this time it was breaking up the whole time. I pulled back in the pits and went over every thing I could think of, but found nothing. I figured the distributor cap may have started to melt. I usually go through at least one during a two-day event due to the manifold being so close to it. I always keep at least one spare with me, but I had forgotten it in Texas. It was lunch time and the first practice session was over so we hit the road in search of a distributor cap and rotor.

It took us a while to find a store that had one so by the time we got back. the second practice session was about to start. We tossed the new cap and rotor on and I went out for a run. Just like before it did fine on the first part of the track but started breaking up on the second lap. I pulled back in the pits and we started trouble shooting everything we could think of. After some debate and dead ends we decided it might be the distributor. The second practice session was getting close to ending and qualifying was set to start immediately afterwards so I sent Mike and Tim on a mission to find the distributor. I decided to stay just in case they weren’t back in time so I could still try to make a decent qualifying run. After they went to a couple of different parts houses they came to the conclusion that there was no where in town to get a distributer. I told them to head back to the track and I would just have to try to qualify with it the way it was. I suited up and headed out to the track as qualifying had already started and I definitely didn’t want to miss it.

As I was waiting until the very last group to line up I was hoping that somehow more time would fix my problem. It didn’t. As soon as I left the line for my first qualifying run the car broke up horribly; it was barely accelerating. I just happened to glance at the volt meter while it was breaking up and it was pegged at over 20 volts. I made a u-turn on the straight and asked if I could start again. They gave me the heads up so I jumped out of the car and pulled the plug on the back of the alternator thinking it would temporarily fix the problem. I lined back up and the same thing happened again and the voltage was still over 20. When I pulled around again the flagger was getting a little frustrated but told me I could try to start again. I was really amped on adrenaline at this point and didn’t think i was going to get it to work. I hadn’t brought any tools with me and the only wire left on the alternator was the big power wire that’s bolted on top. I was out of time and luck so I just ripped the wire straight off the alternator. I jumped back in and took off from the line. To my amazement the car felt great off the line so I threw it into the first turn not knowing what to expect. I finished the track and had a great run. I pulled back up to the line and took off for my second qualifying run. It wasn’t quite as good as the first but the car was working and that was all that mattered.

There was a break for a while for the judges to tally their scores and announce the top 16. I knew my run was good enough to make it in but now my car needed an alternator. Everyone pulled out their phones and started trying to track one down. I headed to the drivers’ meeting for the top 16 announcement. I started getting nervous when they got down to the top eight and still hadn’t said my name yet. I ended up qualifying 4th! I was super happy with the results and to top it off I ended up winning the RETAKS insane entry award for my first run. I headed back to the pits to share the news and get ready for the top 16. unfortunately the search for an alternator turned up nothing. In a scramble we swapped out the one in the car for a larger one and went in search for spares. I made one practice run before the tandem rounds started just to make sure everything felt right. Everything seemed good so we waited for the tandem to start. We took the truck out to the track with all of the gear. We wanted to keep the battery charged so we hooked it to the truck with jumper cables. While my car sufficiently charged, I rode in Chelsea Denofa’s car for introductions. It was strange getting introduced without my car but it was still fun to be out on track for introductions again. After some quick burnout action we headed back to the grid to get ready for the competition.

For my first battle I was up against Odi Bakchis in his Nissan 240. I had watched him a little bit during practice and he looked like he was doing pretty good. We watched the first few rounds of tandem as I waited for my turn. It looked like my teammates were doing pretty good. Josh Steele won his first round battle against Ryan Clemens, and Chelsea beat Jason Beatty as well. I was pretty pumped after watching their runs and my time was up. We unhooked the car from the jumper cables and pushed it toward the starting line. To save battery power we push-started it right before I pulled to the line. I got to lead first since I qualified higher. They gave us the go ahead to start so I flipped on the headlights and hit the gas. The run went pretty well. Odi initiated a lot later than me which allowed him to stay close to me throughout the whole track. I knew I would have to follow him pretty close to get the win. We pulled to the line again and took off this time with me following. I shifted into 2nd gear leaving the line and it felt like the tires were spinning. I shifted into third and it got worse. It was the clutch slipping not the tires. At this point I was losing ground very fast to Odi. The clutch finally grabbed right before I entered the first turn. I was pretty far behind at this point but I drove hard and was able to get on his door by the end of the track. I knew it would be up to the judges and unfortunately they gave the win to Odi. It was a fun battle, but it’s never fun to lose. I parked my car and cheered on my teammates during their battles. After the battles were finished, I got to go out on track for the awards ceremony to receive the Insane Entry award. It was an awesome feeling to receive an award in front of the crowd.

Later that night , we loaded up the cars and headed back for Texas. It was a really fun event, and I can’t wait for the next season of XDC. I want to thank all of my sponsors: NonStopTuning, Secret Services Auto, Weir Performance, Spec Clutch, and Street Star Auto.

This entry was posted on 12/13/2010 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Drifting, Drifting news, Misc., News, SMT Garage, Uncategorized, Will Parsons, Will Parsons Drifting News, Will Parsons News with tags 86 garage, ae86, ae86 drift, big axel kit, non stop tuning, NST, SMT Garage, spool, toyota, turbo, weir performance, Will Parsons, XDC, Xtreme drift circuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.