Besides my full-time day job and freelance writing for Dragzine I help crew for Ray Litz on his ERL LSX-powered, X275 Chevrolet Camaro that became famous last year for its show-stopping, wheelstanding debut at the Holley LS Fest in Bowling Green. This year we’re able to start our season much sooner and made our first big race, the Chevy High Performance Nationals down in Atlanta. My role as a crew member for the car is to be Ray’s helping hands in the pit area, drive the tow vehicle, help Ray strap in, and put him in the beams when needed. This is a fun look at what a race weekend is like from the perspective of a crew member on a LSX Drag Radial car. There are no private jets or five-star hotels here ladies and gentleman…this is grass roots drag racing at its finest.

Waiting for the gates to open and the fun to begin.

Day 1 – Hitting The Road :  My epic adventure to the Chevy High Performance Nationals began in Columbus Ohio, where I jumped in the rig with Ray at about 9 p.m. with LSX/True Street kingpin Brian Palcisko following in his rig in tow. According to the Garmin this would be about a 12 hour drive to the track in Commerce, Georgia.

Overall the trip down was pretty uneventful outside from having to negotiate some close quarters at a gas station with the rigs, and a slight case of a missed exit outside Knoxville. For a first day this one was great, very uneventful and relaxing. Tomorrow will bring our first hits on the track that is rumored to be pretty tricky.

Day 2 – First Cracks At Hotlanta:  We got up early to hit the very nice hotel breakfast before we departed for the track. The typical first day at the track is getting all the pit stuff unloaded, getting the car ready, then off to tech. Ray made it through tech with flying colors so it was back to the pit to make final preparations, and that was about the last positive thing that happened for the day.  The track was just not there and our first test hit was more like a 30 foot burnout.

We got the car back to the pits and tried to narrow in on the conditions. After placing some weight in the back of the car, changing the travel limiters in the front, and taking a ton out of the tune, we tried again, but had the same results. At this point Ray had decided we wasted enough C16 fuel and it was time to put the car in the trailer for the day. Tomorrow is qualifying so the pressure really starts in.

Ray Litz’s X275/LSX Drag Radial Camaro.

Day 3 – The Second Day of Qualifying: Today started with some promise, but ended nearly the same as Friday. Ray took a bunch out of the tune up with the hope of making a clean hit. The track was there just enough to get a 7.81@184 and that was good enough for a 3^rd place qualifying spot. Just a week earlier, Ray was running 7.60’s trying to shake the car down at Norwalk, so we knew the power was there. We went back to the trailer and got the car ready for our next qualifying pass. The track conditions were very poor and the car just spun off the line. At this point there’s nothing we’re really able to adjust on the car due to the very poor conditions of the track. All of the LSX Drag Radial teams were really struggling with the track surface, too. In the last qualifying session none of the cars were able to make a clean pass so we sit in 3^rd still heading into eliminations tomorrow.

Day 4 – Go Big Or Go Home: Eliminations day is always pretty intense at these bigger events. With the threat of bad weather, the race program was really ramped time wise, and that just adds to the pressure. Our first round opponent was Rigorberto Trevino, the number six qualifier with a beautiful 2004 Chevy Pickup. I helped get the car ready and it was off to the staging lanes for our pairing. The car actually stuck on the launch but with the soft tune, Ray had to run the pickup truck down with a 7.96 elapsed time. That put us in the semi-final against Mike Brown of the Ohio Boys team, one of the quickest and fastest cars in LSX drag radial racing.

With the accelerated race program we had a shorter time to turn the car around for the next round. In the semi-final Ray put a little bit more on the tune up so we would have a chance against Brown. The car launched great, but bucked out of the groove and that was all she wrote. Brown trucked down through the stripe with a 7.36 and we were headed to the trailer.

Even if we had won, there was an issue with the car as we noticed the car was spewing oil out the bottom of the belly pan down on the turnoff. It looks like an oil line failed at the end of the run, but the belly pan kept the oil off the track. And thankfully, off the tires.

To add insult to injury right after we got the car back to the pit it started to POUR rain down. There’s nothing worse than having to do a rush load job as its raining really hard on you. All things considered it was a good weekend. The LSX Drag Radial racing family is a close one, and they love to have fun…even with the bad track conditions people were willing to help each other make their cars work down the track. 

So, the life of a crew member on a Drag Radial car is hard work at times. This weekend was pretty tame when it came to big issues with the car, so we got pretty lucky.