Wagons of Steel North

Hot Wagon on Wagon Action

2011-11-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe not hot but at least way warmer than it is outside. As of this post there is a fresh skim of snow on the ground and its about 5 degrees below freezing. Good time to be indoors, I'm sure Malbotia and her evil twin Demonica are enjoying the warmth stacked double decker with my newest aquisition, ie a slightly used 30 year old 4 post lift. Its the only real answer when you discover you have more projects on the go than parking spaces indoors. With El Chupacabra II finally in paint and back at Pat's place for final reassembly, we've gotten down to business stuffing the back shop for the long cold winter ahead of us.
Plans include freshening up the ol race mill with some fresh bearings. This was actually planned for last winter but somehow building the altered wheelbase ate up all the time available, so we opted to run "one more season" on the old bearings. All well and good until you, oh I don't know, say, seize up an oil pump. That minor catastrophe removed what little resistance was left I'm guessing as we did post a record ET afterward.
So besides overdue maintenance there are little plans for the big black car. Our evil minds are still concocting plans. We are however busy with a few other irons in the fire. The mighty Atomic 6 is one bay over from the black beauties for a minimum of interior work, and probably paint and the much awaited turbo upgrade. My all but forgotten Coronet will flank them on the other side and finally continue moving forward, disc brake install being next on the list before suspension and powertrain mockup. Not to mention our 56 Chevy sedan delivery and the old man's duramax tow rig project. I have a feeling we'll run out of winter before we run out of things to keep us busy.
Now to put the plow truck back together and watch the snow fall. Project updates to come.

Dangerous

MMMM, Racing

2011-09-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Best dressed crew at Thunder Mountain...gnawing on turkey legs like animals. Barbaric? Yes. Perfect? Yes as well. A good time was had by all. Demonica was back to her old self, going fast with no major problems, our fastest pass yet at thunder mountain. 7.55 if you're keeping notes. Since we weren't busy fixing stuff there was some time to relax hang out at the Smoked truck and do what we do best.

We can't thank the volunteers enough, especially Jim here, he's responsible for applying copious amounts of VHT traction compound to the track, after adjusting our new Caltracs adjustable shocks and some wicked smoky burnouts the ol girl produced a demonic 1.666 second 60 foot time and improved from there, punishing the 10.5" Mickey Thompson ET Drag slicks so generously supplied by Kal Tire.

Then everything turned tragic when I accidentally backed over Pat. Just kidding.

I did it on purpose. Still kidding, he's actually adjusting the shocks. Don't be shocked, he actually does this kind of thing pretty often, its just poorly documented. I say, More Photos Of Pat's Feet!

Oh and just a note from last time, apparently almost no one watched Iddiocracy recently enough to get all my jokes. Sigh.... Better luck next time.

So maybe watch some movies, perhaps The Simpsons, and check out the El Chupacabra page soon, I've been sanding and filling like a madman. Later.

Dangerous

UPGRAYEDDs

2011-08-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

Do you know why there's 2 Ds? Not Sure? How about a double dose of awesome! I once heard a wise fictional character say that the chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opertunity. I'm not sure if that's true or if crisitunity is a real word but I do like bolting on shiny new parts from china. As well as shiny old parts from Creston but thats a the second dose of awesome. Seen above is the shiny new driver's door we recently aquired in trade from our good buddy Handsome Paul. We quickly prepped 'er shot a fresh coat of black and bolted 'er on, minus about 40lbs of extra weight of course. All you BC/DC fans need not worry, their sponsor cheque cleared, we're just waiting for shiny new decals for the new door.

The big story this week is our all new oiling system including new oil pump, drive, pick-up and shiny chinese pan from 440source.com. I was ever so happy to see 80 psi on the gauge last night after assembling the new package. If you were a squirrel running into the woods behind my house you might see this pretty new pan, as seen above. Better that than seeing Jo-Jo, my newest rescue dog, as seen below. ( She Hates Squirrels ).

Heading for Thunder Mountain Raceway tomorrow, All the makings of a really good show are in place, hope to see you there!

Dangerous

Fix, Race, Break, Repeat

2011-08-16T21:26:00.000-07:00

Sooo, remember when we fixed those broken rocker arms a few weeks back? And then proceeded to kick ass? Well last race weekend didn't quite unfold that way.

Pictured above is a sheared off oil pump drive. From a 440 mopar. In a 1967 Monaco. Named Demonica. And apparently all the good intentions and kick ass sponsors can't help you when your oil pump sucks up a needle bearing from a previously broken roller rocker and subsequently stops turning. Which means no oil pressure, which means the ol race motor is on borrowed seconds.

So lets focus on Graham's 330. Seems our junkyard 440 temporary transplant paid off, as the old girl drove 4 hours to the track, pulled off multiple 10 second passes ( that's 2 seconds faster than the poly 318 did ) and still drove home. Driving to the track, swapping on some slicks, racing and still driving home afterward is a solid goal for any street machine and the 330 came thru with shining colours. Just wait 'til we get the badass motor together again, I can't wait.

Deciding to take the high road and have a look at the bearings in Demonica before running her again we had a nice quiet night at thunder mountain. Quiet by thunder standards anyway, the campfire in the "PARTY PITS" was attended well into the wee hours. There were smores and tube meat just in case anyone was concerned.

Big thanks to Bill for dragging our drag car onto the trailer with the track tow truck before racing began on sunday. You'll all be glad to here that the bearings aren't showing any copper and we have a bunch of oiling system upgrade goodies on order. Even an oil pan without dents!! Crazy, I know. Should be back rattling windows by the end of the week. Unless it takes til thursday night before our next race weekend. Wouldn't wanna speculate either way. Keep yer fingers crossed.

Dangerous

Carnage A Plenty

2011-07-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

How many wagons in our fleet can simultaneously fail? 1, 2, maybe 3? All but 1 seems to be the way its been going. Remember when I said there's been all kinds of carnage, details to come, here's some details.

Pretty ain't it? Graham's 413 max wedge clone, right at home in her freshly painted and detailed engine bay cross ram and hi-flow exhaust manifold equiped. Just Installed thus spring with many a late night and early morning to make it happen. So we get er running, tuned relatively well and decide a few passes down the strip are a perfect plan. The Boys from Vashon (the original Wagons of Steel in case you didn't know), are racing in Spokane for one of their division 6 stock eliminator races, so we figure some friday night test and tune passes are the perfect plan.

Oh plans, how they elude us sometimes. Poor Graham gets just south of our local border crossing at Nelway and that ever so pretty 413, well, lets just say, fails to procede. Squeaked to a halt one might say. Later surgery would reveal a spun rod bearing. Bummer.

So Pat and I spring into action as is customary, load up his 67 Polara (as in Polara Pat) and take off to the rescue.

Almost. Head gaskets let go in Pats trusty 440. Luckily as we coasted off the side of the road we stopped next to a beautiful mountain stream. So we filled the rad back up with glacier fresh water and limped back home.

Lets recap, 1 413, and 1 440 down, did I mention that we weren't racing Demonica at this particular event because of that lil bent valve issue? So 3 big blocks down, we switch to plan D and swap all our gear into the mighty Atomic 6. Equiped with the leaning tower of power 225 slant 6 she makes a hell of a grocery getter, dog hauler, highway unit. Maybe not the best drag racer (Yet He He) but running counts for a lot at this stage of the game.

The ol Atomic did well for us however, made it to Spokane and back drama free and delivered some spectacular fuel ecomomy.

So why are we pushing the Atomic into my shop? Seems once Demonica was race ready it was time for some Atomic carnage. The morning before we left for race 1 at Thunder mountain a rogue boulder bounced up off the highway and met up with the ol girl`s soft white (black, whatever) underbelly and made about 6 really solid collisions with multiple metal parts, the most critical being when it broke the transmission case.

Lots of mopar tranny practice in the last while, but who doesn`t enjoy being elbow deep in a tranny I ask? Three A-904 automatics became one that morning before we left to kick as in kelowna. Been running like a top ever since.

As for Graham, we got him back on the road with a spare stock 440 stuffed between the hi-flows for temps with a single 4 barrel. Looks like a Nascar option. Functional for the moment at least. Pat's Polara has a fresh set of gaskets installed and all appears to be well there. Perfect.

Of course Demonica just decided not to back up. Every bidy cross your fingers and hope its just another broken band strut. Thank you.

Dangerous

Triumph Over Adversity, or #2 was #2 then We were #2

2011-06-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

Where to begin? Lets spin back the clock to october to begin this saga, Osoyoos season closer. After once again performing as only Demonica can and completing our race day the ol girl decides not too back off the trailer. No worries got all season to fix the tranny right. Well as these things usually go I found myself elbow deep in Trick Shift ATF a week before Cactus Jalopies in Osoyoos (June 10-12), expecting a simple repair I was sorry to discover that the rear band in the ol 727 was trying to escape thru the top of the transmission case, bad news.

Luckily we keep our feathers numbered...No wait, I mean we keep 2 race transmissions on hand for such occsasions. Of course the spare tranny had the low roller blown apart mid season and someone hadn't gotten to fixing it although the parts were on hand. So after a quick overhaul and replacement the trans was ready to rock, quick dose of fresh Penzoil 5w50 synthetic and off to the track. Right?
7.53, 7.54 followed by 8.20? WTF!? Seven Cylinders my friends, first engine problem in the better half of a decade. Seems the #2 intake rocker rejected its roller tip and sent the valve dropping into the cylinder where, we learned later, it ever so gently kissed the piston and bent into a bit of an S shape.

Just one bent valve and 13 of 16 rockers failed won't stop us. Polara Pat, Graham and I had her ship shape in no time and off to race 1 at Thunder Mountain in Kelowna. The plan was; I run saturday in the King of the Hill cash race and Pat runs Sunday in Race 1.

A good plan only counts til the action starts. After only 1 qualifying pass on saturday the day was called on account of rain. Did that dampen our spirits? Of course not we're seasoned veterans and know why they call it "THUNDER" Mountain.

Our new friends at "SMOKED" who had the food truck duties for the weekend however, were brand new to the scene. No worries we showed em the ropes, always make friends with purveyors of succulent pork, I always say.

Sunday came along with everyone hungry for racing action and after some blistering qualifying passes, including a WOSN record at thunder mountain of 7.56 at over 89 mph, Pat piloted the wagon to the finals. This included a semi final bye run (balls out of course) thanks to a razor sharp .020 reaction time in the previous round.

Unfortunately you can only balance on the razor`s edge for so long and our day ended with a .007 second red light in the finals against a perfect 7.85 on a 7.85 dial by our competitor in his 440 powered Dart. All 440 Mopar final though, and the prize money covered our fuel for the weekend. Sweet. There you have it, from number 2 to number 2. Gotta love racing.

Dangerous

The 2011 Season is Upon Us!

2011-06-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

Did anyone see this coming? Apparently its spring and its time to go racing. We've been so caught up in our newest project, ( WOSN racecar #2, El Chupacabra II ) that we almost forgot. http://alteredwagon.blogspot.com/. However, true to form we thrashed thru several late nights and got good ole Demonica ready to rock and hit Osoyoos for Cactus Jalopies 2011, Drag racing at Wine Country Raceway as seen above, or on the WCRA season schedule. Can't tell you how stoked i was to walk into the Osoyoos Lordco and see our car looking back at me. The details from Racing in Osoyoos you ask, well... 2 blistering qualifying passes followed by a 7 cylinder pass with a broken rocker arm.
Lets just say its been a carnage filled season all around, Details to come.

Dangerous

Ass Kicking Goodness

2010-07-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Due to two rained out weekends at Thunder Mtn this season, the July 17/18 race weekend was slotted as a triple header extravaganza that also included an instant green street drags race on Saturday night. We generally pit with the majority of the volunteers so needless to say, they weren't too excited about all the work ahead of them. We started early Saturday morning with the intent on hammering out two points races in one day. Everything started out tight but soon turned to shit when it was discovered that freshly laid asphalt that was put down on Friday afternoon was not staying where it should be. I did a wild pass consisting of spinning the tires half track and steering the whole way before they shut it down for 2 1/2 hours to scrape out all the asphalt repairs.

Back on track with traction to spare we started the program again. I went to the second round for the re-run of race #1. Round two (race 3 re-run) found us bouncing through the competitors until the emergency staff was called away for an accident in the pits. Apparently someone's neutral safety switch wasn't entirely working and crushed the owner between two Darts breaking his femur. Crushed by your own car, how much does that suck? Regardless, that ended racing for the day since we can't run without an ambulance on site. Sunday morning came rather early after rockin' out until after 4:00 am but we handled the situation like champs. I did a qualifying pass for race #5 then went back to finish off race #3 from the day before (confused yet?) Race three landed me in the finals against Ralph Pool in his '66 Cuda. He's a man who knows his machine really well and is a genius when it comes to messing with other racer's minds. No problem here, my hungover brain can only see what's in front of me and our car is set on "kill". I tree'd Ralph big time and with no green Cuda in site I lifted way before the traps but still managed to breakout by a microscopic .008 seconds. Second place for Polara Pat. Chris drove for race #5 that afternoon and his sober mind cut some stellar lights, also landing him in the finals against Charles (?) in his Dart that he has owned since high school. Unfortunately Chris hammered out his only red light of the day leaving him with a runner up finish as well. All in all we racked up 17 passes in two days, brought home some hardware and $200.00 in cheques. Not a ton of money but every bit counts when you operate a DIY race team.

Polara Pat

Match Bash Part 1

2010-06-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

We hit the road at 5:30 Thursday afternoon with a core posse of Chris, Graham and myself with Demonaco in tow, bound for Bremerton raceway. The trip is a boring pull consisting of South to Spokane and West towards Tacoma, amounting to about an 8 1/2 hour drive with nothing but fast food in between. Graham was gracious enough to do all of the driving allowing me to do more important tasks like sample exotic small batch libations. We arrived just after 2:00 am and lined up behind some other keen racers.

A little shut eye then first in the gates at 8:00 am Friday morning. The wagons of Steel team showed up shorty after that and we all unloaded our rigs and did some final checks before getting the cars teched. Josephine II was looking bad-ass and we finally got to see what was going on under hood. 480 stroker you say with a big ass Dominator sitting on top like the toilet of the Gods. Were we nervous?

(Pat checks out the competition's cockpit)

Not really. Did we think we were going to get our asses handed to us? Yes. To our advantage this was the absolute first run for this car so there were bound to be issues to work out. Dr. Bigblock decided to take the inaugural run and we said "game on, we're not here for our looks and award winning personalities."

(C-body against C-body...US and Canada battle it out!)

We lined up at the lights and put a set of thunderous hammers down. JII pulled ahead for a second then I knew that I was going to run him down. Canada 1, USA 0. It turns out that the rev limiter in their car was coming on at 6000 rpm, not to good when you shift at 6400. Tough loss but we'll take all we can get. Our next match was against Matt Hattfield who is the primary driver for this car. Matt cut an astounding .002 light on me and did absolutely everything right but our battle hardened missile of death came alive and chased him down winning by barely half a bumper.

(Now thats racing!)

It was the most specatacular race of the weekend and Matt and I were ecstatic with the results...o.k. I was a bit more excited because that was win 2 out of 5.

(School'n Pat and Chris on how its done)

Next we went into the cash bash so we couldn't race each other for the rest of the day and decided to finish the match race Saturday morning.

(Josephine II in all her glory)

(Vashon Ferry sunset....)

Saturday came early and found us standing in the rain at the track listening to generators. "Screw this, lets go back to the shop and consume large quantities of Sierra Nevada IPA." Which we promptly did. Unfortunately Sunday was also a wash so we packed up our gear and headed for home.

(Josephine I - what once was...)

We'll call the match a draw since we didn't get to finish it and we'll start again in the Fall at an undisclosed track near you. Congratulations to the WOS team for meeting our challenge four weeks ago and building a race car in record time. I'm thinking that it may not have happened if they had not blown up their stocker since I noticed some pretty fancy parts borrowed from the Savoy. Either way, they made it happen and we all got to race together. The wet weather didn't even get us down since Friday was so epic and we got to hang with our extended family in Nelson's sister town-ship known as Vashon Isl. A dump truck load of thanks goes out to Chris, Natalie, Joseph, Caroline, Mike, Nola, Matt, Keri, Step, other Matt, Jerry, Mark and everyone else who stopped by and helped out, drank and made us laugh...lots.

(Caesars for all my friends!!!)

Meat on the hood - Vashon Style

Until next time

Finals Baby!!!

2010-06-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

We toured down to sunny Osoyoos last weekend for the annual "Cactus Jalopies" car show and cruise with a little bit of racing on Sunday. This is my fourth year going to this show and it never disappoints. The numbers seemed a bit down from previous years but it just seemed to mean a more concentrated group of like minded gearheads and less gold chainers.
Sunday racing found us at the airstrip with about 2 1/2 hours sleep from partying the night before but in true WOS fashion, adrenaline always trumps hangover. This is my first time at the wheel this season so it took a couple of passes to remember what I was doing. Eliminations came and I cut my best light of the day and almost nailed my dial in. Unfortunately the timing tower forgot that we were running eliminations so they called for a re-match. We were pissed but they gave us a Bi. I continued to mash through the competition, going five rounds in the blazing heat and poor old Demonaco was boiling over at 235*, yikes. We got to the line for the final and the timing lights died from a dead battery, is this really happening? Having to shut the car off at that temperature, I knew that it probably wouldn't start again. We cranked and prayed a bit and she finally choked to life. Unfortunately I spun the tires at the light handing the win to a nice young kid who ran a 7.77 on a 7.74 dial. Hard to argue with that. Great day of racing and we were stoked that our new sponsors Jamie and Jillian of Unity boardshop could stop by with a cube of ice cold Pilsner (for after the race of course).

This afternoon we leave for Bremerton for the highly anticipated match race with Wagons of Steel (South). Stay tuned for more high octane antics and tales of drag wagon hilarity.

New Sponsor

2010-05-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

The entire team at WOSN would like to give a warm welcome to Jamie and Jill from Unity Boardshop in Osoyoos, B.C. We happen to love these two little freaks and thought they would be a perfect fit for our big wagon and eccentric crew of miscreants. Their logo will take up (hopefully) permanent residence on the tail gate to give disheartened Camaro and Mustang drivers something to look at while their getting spanked by a huge Dodge wagon.

Match Race

2010-05-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Matt Hatfield, asleep at the switch.

The gauntlet has officially been thrown down and we at Wagons of Steel North have called out our Southern brothers for a good old fashioned match race. These guys are ridiculously serious about building race cars (and pretty much silly regarding everything else) so we have our work cut out for us. To our advantage, their car is still in the final throws of construction so anything can go wrong (and usually will). They have built their new '70 T&C Chrysler to perform well into the tens but this will be one of it's maiden voyages down the 1320. The race is scheduled for June 18Th at Bremerton raceway and will hopefully be a best of five heads up match.

2010 Race Schedule

2010-05-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here is the tentative plan for racing this season. We still haven't shoehorned any Spokane or Mission dates in yet but we will definitely do our best to make some of those races.

June 5 & 6 Thunder Mtn season opener race 1
June 13 Osoyoos, Cactus Jalopies weekend
June 18 Bremerton Raceway WOS South Match race. This is a highly anticipated race with our behemoth wagon vs their brand new '70 T&C Chrysler wagon it will be a best of 5 race, us vs them, may the Best Canadian win.
June 19 & 20 Bremerton Raceway NHRA National Open, sponsored by Wagons of Steel (South)
Aug. 7 & 8 Thunder Mtn race 5 & 6
Aug. 28 & 29 Thunder Mtn race 7
Sept. 18 & 19 Thunder Mtn race 8
Oct. 3 Osoyoos Pat's Birthday race

Multi-Carb Madness!!!

2010-04-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Another season of full throttle action quickly approaches and since we didn't manage to blow up anything too big in the '09 season we ended up just storing the race car for the Winter and focusing on some personal projects. Chris is in the process of over doubling his shop space at Babe's Automotive; Graham is well on his way to building the ultimate sleeper out of his '63 330 wagon. (more on that later); And I've been hard at work building a couple of small motorcycles and collecting parts for my altered build. Gabe decided to get married and have a kid so we're planning on seeing him sometime around 2027 for his son's graduation.

Since we decided to shun our Winter maintenance schedule it was decided that we would treat ourselves to a serious induction upgrade. So we purchased a tunnel ram intake with two 650cfm double pumpers sitting atop from fellow racer Paul (who happens to drive a 10 second '64 Hemi Dodge). Our original carb is excellent and with 950cfm of flow it really is a fuel toilet. The problem is that we're greedy, so if one carb is good then two carbs are fantastic...right?

It doesn't hurt that it looks cool as hell sticking through the hood. We got it all hooked up yesterday with some cobbled linkage and it flashed up without hesitation and idled like a fire breathing champ. We will now have to fabricate some real linkage and plum in our regulators, braided hose and AN fittings to appease the powers that be. The Hemi scoop will also have to disappear form our fiberglass hood in lieu of an aluminum "mailbox". We also realized that there is a bunch of things on the "to-do" list that have been neglected for the past couple of years, so it's back to the shop for some more hammering and grinding.
I'll be posting something of a loose schedule soon, regardless, things are shaping up and we hope to see a few of you at the track this year.

Polara Pat

Taking Home the Plaques

2009-09-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

Photo: Montana Nord

Another fine weekend of racing at Thunder Mtn. raceway found the crew of two wagons and two sleds taking up an entire section of pits. The big wagon ran strong under heavy right foot of "Dangerous" Chris Carlson and saw us going to the fourth round on Saturday afternoon.

Photo: Montana Nord

The real shining star came in the form of one Graham Jones in his street driven 330 wagon. The sportsman bracket is considered the "slow car" set but it's consistency that wins races and Grahammerdown showed them all how it's done, taking first place on Saturday. Then we had a little long drive (golf now) competition to see who could keep their ball on the straight and narrow down the eighth mile. Again with his cup running over with confidence and mihr, Graham won this one as well taking home a cool $50.00.

Photo: Montana Nord

Saturday night we played old movies like Bullet, Gone in 60 seconds and C&C Up in smoke against the side of the trailer. Sunday didn't find us nearly hungover enough but Demonaco managed to wheel to the second round before getting squashed by Terry Mcrady in his beautiful '65 Dodge. Terry ended up winning the day, not bad for an old retired dude, we can all only hope to be so lucky when we're his age. Graham came in second and took home another plaque and cheque. Big weekend for that old boy too, now it's time to fix up the body and add a new big block to that rig.

Great weekend over-all.

Next race date is scheduled for Oct. 4th in Osoyoos.

Nostalgia Drags

2009-08-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've given a proper update and here we are smack dab in the middle of the '09 season. With Gabe getting hitched and making a brand new human, his season doesn't exist. I'm in the midst of my busiest catering season and Graham's wagon has been a soggy noodle up until last week. Alas, a soldier prevails. Dangerous Chris Carlson has been a veritable army of one, running the points program at Thunder Mtn. this year. He's been plagued with transmission problems, only getting two gears for the first three weekends but still managed to come in first place on one of his outings putting him in second place so far in Pro.

Last week we thrashed on Graham's car and put my old 318 Poly and push button 727 in place of his old running gear. It now pulls hard, gets every gear and smokes the tires. Can I get a hell yeah?! We also added a whole slew of hard parts to our race trans including a new reverse valve body and, with some minor tweaking, we finally got third gear.

So we ventured out early Friday for the Mission old time drags, our absolute favorite race of the year. It's like a huge weekend party with tons of cool people and ridiculously slick cars and a side of drag racing thrown in for good measure. Demonaco pulled as hard as she ever has producing a record breaking 11.33 @ 117 mph, we were stoked....to say the least. Unfortunately, a weak battery and excessive cranking absolutely melted our starter while sitting in the staging lanes. We pushed to the side and thrashed like mad men to swap in our spare starter but the over-efficient NHRA staff managed to run our class without us. With everything ship shape for Sunday we did our final qualifying pass and set our dial-in. Then we got the bi for our first run and the car slowed down almost a second. Perplexed, we assumed that I could have shifted poorly and we went to the second round. This time I nailed an .024 light and shifted like a champ but the car went slow. We then noticed that the #8 spark plug wire had worked itself loose. Oh well, that's racing. It gave us a chance to sip some cold ones in the shade and watch some kick-ass drag racing. Graham raced the 330 with his fresh new/old combo and ran a best time of 16.83 with all the seats and spare in the car. He broke out in the first round and got a chance to join me and the hooligans at the end of the track. Fantastic weekend over all and everyone made it home in one piece.

Wagons of Steel North - A Retrospective

2009-03-30T01:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video showcasing the WOSN Team over the last few years. It looks like we've had a great time doing what we do. Enjoy!

Who's A Pretty Girl

2009-03-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

We had a great couple of days hammering on the race car and managed to get pretty much race-ready for this upcoming season. The motor has a fresh set of bearings in it and we did a little cleaning and a re-paint to keep things looking tight. We also cleaned up the engine compartment since we had the front clip off and gave her a little dose of semi-gloss black. You may remember a certain incident last year where we went to a national event in Mission only to get completely discriminated against by a little Nazi regime known as the NHRA tech department. Well that was a humbling experience but the upside is that we don't want anyone to ever second guess the safety of our vehicle again. After all it is their rules, not ours, so even if we happen to think everything is built to code and absolutely safe, it's really not up to us in the end. On that note, we filled every hole in our fire wall with aluminum sheet; added a regulation over flow tank to our rad and upgraded all of our fuel system with new steel braided line and (colorful and expensive) AN fittings to appease the powers that be. We also added a starter saver and a new mini-starter to the combo. Transmission refreshed and bolted back into position, we dropped the package back into it's home and flashed up the fire breathing big block for a satisfying couple of minutes. Now everything is as it should be.
Our race schedule will be announced shortly but the only change in personel will be Chris driving at Thunder Mtn this year in the points division. He will be able to make almost every race whereas my busy schedule only allows me to make a few mid-Summer Kelowna events. I will still be piloting the other events which will hopefully include an early season race in Spokane, Some Osoyoos dates and of course Mission old time drags on Aug. 1st and 2nd. I will also be organizing a street car shoot-out for this race weekend so bring you muscle cars out and see if they're worth their salt.

Polara Pat

General Maintenance

2009-03-08T16:54:00.001-07:00

Well we finally got a chance to spend some time with the big wagon last weekend. We knew that we had lost reverse gears after the last race but didn't know until last Saturday that all the gears were now nonexistent. So we muscled Demonaco into the shop and began unfastening the power train. We made our front clip easy to remove when we stripped the car out years ago, so it wasn't much trouble to have the whole motor and trans combo out inside of an hour. The main bearings were showing copper so we decided to order up a full set of main and rod bearings for some cheap insurance. The crank looked to be in excellent shape so we'll leave that alone for now. It hasn't been that long since the top end has been apart which means that the heads don't have to be removed. A new mini starter will be added since the old one was complaining of stress and heat and we'll add a starter saver to prolong it's life. Besides that, we'll probably go through the carb and just bolt everything back together.

The transmission is another story altogether. Things went horribly wrong in the mystical world of our automatic gear box. Parts welded themselves to each other and mushroomed shafts making it nearly impossible to even disassemble. Alas, Chris created some make-shift tools to accompany his massive slide hammer to seriously persuade otherwise precision parts to come unglued. Hard parts will be replaced from parts trannys in our inventory and new clutches and steels will come from our new kit.
There is still lots of snow on the ground here but race season is nearly upon us and we don't need to be caught with our pants down (again) on the Friday before race day with an ill performing machine. It pays to be organized and plan ahead for the next catastrophe because this is drag racing and things will break, it's just a matter of when.

Polara Pat

Thrashing

2009-03-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Xmas

2008-12-24T20:48:00.001-08:00

Happy Xmas from the Wagons of Steel North Crew.
Best wishes for 2009
Keep the pedal to the floor................

Death Proof Showdown

2008-10-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's A Wrap!!

2008-10-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

The final race of the season for us fine fellas did happen to fall smack dab on my birthday which was on October 5th at the Richter Pass Motorplex (RPM) in the little desert town of Osoyoos B.C. We arrived a day early with plans of meeting up with some of our Kelowna comrades to rock out a little before race day. We actually took this concept to the absolute limit at a bar called The Sage which just happened to be stumbling distance (literally) from our motel. I'm pretty sure we sampled every shot on the menu then moved on to all the shots that no one should ever know about. Consequently we had a collective hangover the next day to rival the darkest feel bad rainbow known to man. One of the funny things that happened that night (besides the quote of the night from team mate Gabe "Stop being a fag and come dance with me") that does stand out was a group of carpenters who were boasting about their boss's tricked out Ford Powerstroke diesel. Well we happened to be using Chris' pops brand new GMC Duramax that offers heaps of stump pulling torque. Drunk talk and bench racing seem to go hand and hand, so we convinced these dudes to venture out to the track to have a diesel showdown between Chevy and Ford. How surprised were we when they actually showed up and wanted to race. Chris is a fine racer and knows what it takes to show up a couple yahoos who are out for blood. He staged shallow, left on the second amber and cut a beautiful light that helped in shutting down the hopped up truck. Needles to say, they didn't stick around after that. Sore losers. Chris opted to keep racing in the Sportsman Warrior class which is an 8.60 and slower heads up category. He consistently stuck to his program and took it all the way home to win the trophy in that class. We then loaded up and he took us all home. The race car was running strong despite some tell tale signs that our trans was about to give us the nod. Alas, I broke out in the first round and put us on the trailer. We did manage to watch some racing though and have some track side cocktails to close out one of the finest ways to spend a B-day if you're a gear-head freak like me. Enjoy this little video of us showing this 440 powered '67 Cuda how fast he could be.

Polara Pat
A little older, none the wiser.

Desert Drags

2008-09-22T14:19:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we decided to venture forth to the little desert town of Osoyoos for a little unsanctioned drag racing at the local air strip. This organization called the "Wine Country Racing Association" started this drag strip at a functioning air strip with cooperation from the city to provide an outlet for us sick minded drag racer types and to curb the urge of street racing. You can get all the details and full story of it's inception here. http://www.winecountryracing.ca/ They are still working out many of the details involved in running a smooth operating facility but they're on the right track. Although VHT was in heavy use at the starting line for a traction aid, we still had problems hooking up and after talking with many fellow racers it was apparent that the problem was shared by everyone. We opted to race in "Pro Bracket" like we normally do instead of their other option of "Pro Warrior" which was more of a heads up class. It just seemed a bit too Xena warrior princess for us. We managed to go rounds and for the first time actually made it to the finals which hopefully breaks our semi-finals curse. Alas we succumbed to a second place finish, handing the trophy to a fellow Thunder Mtn racer in a '65 Coronet. It was a .488 red that clinched the deal for us, a mere .012 of a second from victory. This however never gets us down and losing to someone you actually like and respect makes it even easier. An over-all great day at the track. The next race day is in two weeks on Oct.5th and... wait a minute, isn't that my birthday...so it is, so it is. We will be convoying down on Saturday night and tearing the roof off that little town before the final race of the season. Hope to see you there.

Polara Pat

Bring The Hurt

2008-07-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Wagons of Steel North ventured out last weekend on their big racing excursion of the Summer. Destination: Pacific Raceway, near Seattle for the Goodguys hot rod race on Friday and the Mopar nationals on Sat/Sun. Knowing full well that it was a trek to be reckoned with, we left early on Thursday morning; my Polara hauling the race car and Graham's '63 as our support vehicle. We made a B-line for Vashon Island where we met up with our rival gang and long time friends at Wagons of Steel (South). They prepared a nice smoked meat and seafood dinner, served on the hood of their 1970 T&C wagon (pure class). Friday arrived and the entire entourage made a convoy to the track. We were a bit surprised to see that they were already racing when we arrived, don't they know who we are? The combined WOS posse consisted of four wagons and three coupes, so we were a serious force to be reckoned with. Various problems plagued the group including a spun bearing, busted rear end and misc. trans problems. Our big gun opted to behave for a change and ran like a champ. So needless to say, we only got one qualifying pass before eliminations. No problem, the car was running strong and our team was feeling organized and tight. A mess of good lights accompanied by some free rounds donated by the intimidated few that dared step up to the big wagon put us in the final four around 11:30PM. Alas, we succumbed to a red light leaving us with a semi-final finish.
Saturday was mostly test and tune and since we were mildly concerned with the amount of sticky material left on our slicks, we opted to take it easy and save some for Sunday, which was a good thing. Saturday night found us drinking slightly more than heavily and were finally dead locked in a North vs. South drinking competition at around 4:30 AM. Sunday races seemed to start all too quickly, getting under way at 9:00 AM sharp. Several pints of cowboy coffee and a few qualifying runs later let us know that were back in business. Again, we were excited to go rounds against some high dollar cars and made it to the Semi's again. Having a cheering section in the crowd was a new experience and was a real ego boost to our humble little team. The exciting pass of the weekend went to the match up with our machine against a flashy red nine second Duster. It was during eliminations so I left first but saw the win light in my lane so I knew he red lit. I passed the traps at 115 mph right as he flew past me sideways as a 141 mph ball of smoke. He then proceeded to cross the center line in front of me, where I had to hammer on the brakes and then nearly missed colliding with the wall. It was all pretty exciting from the driver's seat and apparently he had a little pee in his suit. All in all he handled the situation pretty good and no people or machines got hurt.
The drive home was fairly long and uneventful but we did manage to survive a 1000 mile journey with little to no incident and seven wins in competition over the whole weekend.

In Addition to the addition...

2008-07-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, Pat did a pretty good job of detailing the weekend for someone who wasn't there....I guess that means the stories we told were fairly accurate. I thought I'd ad a few more photos to really give you a feel for the radness that is Gabe's hotrod.

A little photo shoot to get Gabes's good side....oh, and the car to.

We're so popular at the track people want autographs....here's Chris signing some for race fans.

This was where all the work got done on my car...notice the tranny and drive shaft laying on the ground....lots of metal bits.

Graham

Other Race Track News

2008-07-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Upon arriving at their drag strip destination near Sunny Kelowna, the transmission in Graham's '63 Dodge decided that enough is enough and promptly shit it's bed. Much drinking ensued which is generally the catalyst for making big plans and a plan was devised. Friends that were driving out from Nelson stopped by the shop and grabbed our spare push-button 727 trans from a '65 Coronet that we parted out. The rear planetary in Mr. Gs tranny decided to seriously come unglued so it would need replacing. Over the course of Saturday racing, between rounds, there was much transmission overhauling to be had. Of course everyone loves to rebuild automatic transmissions at the track so there was a steady audience sometimes exceeding 20 onlookers while Chris and other brave fools dove in elbows deep. Alas, many of the '65 trans components would not interchange but the hard bits like the planetary in need fit the bill. After all the dust settled, there was a running driving car that went so far as to even make it all the way home. A big "shout out" needs to go to Kevin, Sled Beater, Carl and Chris for making all of this a reality. Good job boys.

Aside from playing the role of acting crew chief and transmission technician, "Dangerous" Chris Carlson was also the wheel man for the big wagon in my absence. The car ran it's usual Swiss watch self running solid 7.77 and 7.78s all weekend long. Alas chris was afflicted with the all-to-familiar premature acceleration in eliminations. I know how that feels but it seldom gets us down.

Our next race is in Seattle on July 26, 27 for the Mopar Nationals at Pacific Raceway where we will team up with the Wagons of Steel South team for some serious debauchery.

Hot Rod Debut

2008-07-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend found me working rather than racing at Thunder Mtn with the boys and it nearly killed me. Hopefully they had a cardboard cut-out of me to keep them company and add sarcastic drunken comments where applicable. The big news on this weekend surrounded the drag race debut of "ZzzzBlades" one and only "race rod". Gabe "The Kid" Sawatzky has been building this Model A Roadster Pick-up from the ground up for the past four years and this last weekend he raced the crap out of it. Back in the day, people used to build rods for one purpose only, going fast. Today you'll be hard pressed to find a traditional hot rod that isn't a trailer queen or has even made the effort to make a pass down the drag strip. I'm talking about hand built, light weight cars with huge engines. These things are meant to be thrashed on and Gabe didn't hold anything back. Cutting a descent light was tricky with the manual gear box and despite the super sticky Hurst pie cut racing slicks, traction was at a premium. The best time of the weekend was an 8.95 in the 8th. To put that into perspective, our dedicated race car runs a 7.77 and my big heavy Polara will do a 10.15. So yah, it's really freakin' fast. The joke of the weekend focused around the apparently "Snell approved" helmet that was alegidly signed by Peter Fonda. Fact or fiction...you be the judge.

Racing...It's Still Fun

2008-06-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

The other weekend we made the inaugural journey to the season opener at Thunder Mtn raceway. The car was in fine form and we managed to get a ton of passes over the course of the weekend. Saturday night brought out the tuners from K-town for the instant green street drags and we decided to show them what real cars were all about with our street machines. We mostly kept to ourselves and tried to match race like minded V8 Mopars and each other.

Graham's '63 must have seen twenty passes over the weekend and despite a few tranny issues, it ran like a champ. I had done a bunch of mods to the tow rig and was really itching to see some time slips. Despite an unexplainable off idle bog (perhaps running over 4000 feet above sea level) it ran great, pulling a best e.t. of 10.15. With a better tune, open exhaust and some lower gears it should easily be in the high 9's. Best of all, I got Chris to pilot the big wagon for the night so Gabe and I got to hang out in the tower with camera and secret libations to watch the whole thing unfold. Eliminations found us all on the trailer early but there wasn't a sad face in the pits. We came, we raced, we drank over 150 beers and we didn't blow anything up. How's that for a slice of fried gold.

Swing and a Miss

2008-06-05T20:41:00.001-07:00

Well we packed up the wagons last weekend and headed off for Osoyoos. It's a new 1/8 mile track and they were only running on Sunday. I spoke with the director and he told me that if we showed up on Saturday then we could get a bunch of hits in the afternoon. We arrived around 2:00 and there was nobody in sight. We paused for a safety meeting and somehow came to the ridiculous conclusion that we should drive five more hours and meet our friends from Wagons of Steel South in Mission who are racing in their first NHRA divisional race of the season. So I handed the tiller to Dangerous and proceeded to hit the cooler. We found the boys immediately at the track in Mission and proceeded to exchange stories and drinks. These divisional events are a big deal and we were more than out of our element. From the get go we were off to a bad start showing up on a Saturday afternoon and hoping to run on Sunday. They finally agreed to let us run in the super pro (electronics) category for the full price of the three day weekend with no qualifying pass. We said sure, why not, we've already driven ten hours, why not do one pass for $130.00. But it didn't stop there, the tech inspectors did not want anything to do with our behemoth and had no qualms about letting us know. Everything was wrong according to them and there was nothing we could do to fix it. We tried for several hours to prove them wrong but it was all in vain. Eventually we just gave up because no matter what we did they would always find something wrong. NHRA =1 WOSN= 0. We finally gave up, cracked some beers and watched some racing. Our Pal Gaffo won his first round on Sunday but put himself on the trailer with a red light in the second. It was fantastic to hang out with the Vashon Isl. crew and see their wheel standing stock eliminator car in person. Gaffo also writes for an on line magazine called Mopar Max under the fictitious name of Chris Barnes, and he was gracious enough to post some photos of our rag-tag team admitting defeat by the evil empire that is the NHRA. Our next race is scheduled for June14&15 at Thunder Mtn raceway. It should be a good one so pack up the camper and head on up.

2008-01-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

I know it doesn't look like much but here is the new platform for our next race car. It's a '64 Plymouth Belvedere and as rough as it looks we're going to make this sucker fly. The interior is half gutted so we're already on our way. We have a 440 slated for installation with ported iron heads; the ever sturdy 727 automatic transmission and an 8 3/4 rear with relocated super stock leaf springs. Our plan is to travel with a two car race team since we have to go so far to race and only usually log a few runs. This way we will all get more seat time and our team presence will be strong in the pro class. When we're not running two cars in pro we'll also have the option of flogging Graham's '63 and my '64 in Sportsman. These cars will both be driven to the track. I'm really excited about seeing these two Poly powered gems go head to head.

The New Flag Ship

2007-11-12T11:57:00.001-08:00

It’s been two years since I made the deal with our friend Gaffo Jones from Vashon Island to trade a 1965 Dodge Coronet wagon that we had for a 1964 330 wagon that he picked up. The ’64 Dodge is one of my all time favorite platforms from Mopar in the early ‘60s. They were the cars that were remembered best as the all too familiar candy striped “Ramchargers” as well as countless other famous drag cars like the “Hemi Wagon” and the “Color Me Gone” cars. Because of traction issues in the early days of racing, the wagon had an advantage due to the extra weight over the rear wheels. Unfortunately it also added overall weight and only came in a four door model. We love wagons for any number of ridiculous reasons so Gaffo agreed to hook a brother up with this baby.

Importing and exporting vehicles sucks, so if you have to do it then do your home work and contact the border you plan on crossing directly. I had a paper trail a mile long for both sides so my crossings went smooth. We ventured out on a Thursday morning with the basic plan of pushing the old car off, loading the new (even older) car on the trailer, having drinks and catching up with our old Vashon buddies then maybe watching them race at the Halloween drags on Sunday for the season closer. What we plan and what really happens rarely coincide with each other. The ’64 had been sitting in a field for over three years that we know of. There was at one time a mouse infestation that would rival the rats of Nimh. There were no brakes and the previous owner threw every tune up trick that they knew at the motor with no success in making it run. We flushed and bled all the brake lines to make them work; made sure the motor wasn’t ceased, it wasn’t. The fuel line was split at the pump which meant the tank was empty and not full of sludge so we replaced the hose and filled the tank with gas and of course a new filter. Next was a new set of points and condenser then guess what, it fired right up and idled like a big grumpy kitten. The next task at hand was to clean or rather gut the interior which meant no stone goes unturned. Due to the former rodent army we had to take absolutely everything out and that meant seats, headliner and what used to be a floor. Gabe laid some tin on the driver’s side and the rest got pizza boxes and carpet. Now that we were down to our race weight we needed to address the exterior which got a good hot bath, and then since Gaffo has the use of a vinyl cutter we lettered it up like a super stocker from back in the day. A set of Cragars set of the wheel department and voila, you have an instant (looking) race car. Next we had to do some test runs, so we burned around the streets a bit lighting the tires and doing some test launches. It looked and drove like a real car so we figured since we’re going to Pacific Raceway with a car on a trailer that runs we should probably race it. With its stock two barrel, 2.76 sure grip rear end (how stoked am I) and no oil change the E.T. guesses went from 17.5 to 19 respectively. The field was huge so we didn’t run until 11:00 a.m. or so. We planned on vice gripping the rear brake lines for a poor man’s line lock but with the gutted interior and a water box I just rocked the old fashioned brake stand until I could see smoke in my side view mirror. The launch was soggy to say the least and seemed to take forever to start making revs but eventually it happened so I punched 2 on the keyboard with what I thought felt like 4500 then right before the traps hammered the final button. Slowing down was interesting to say the least, sort of like a Dash-8 landing with skate board wheels. But alas the old girl ran a 16.42 @ 83 mph. Way better than any of us could have hoped for. I got knocked out in the first round of eliminations with a big ‘ol red light. So with a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration we loaded on the trailer and began our long trip home. I will be doing an ongoing update with this car beginning with the power train and moving back from there. None of this would have been possible without the generosity of Gaffo, Dr. Big Block and all of their eclectic entourage. Not to mention Gabe and Chris who always aid in spoiling my liver and splitting my sides.

Polara Pat

It's not all racing....is it?

2007-07-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

I realized that it's been almost a year since our last proper update so I thought I would post some shots of our other wagons that are lovingly revived and often times rescued from the crusher. We have a total of nine wagons including the race car and if I ever get organized I plan to create a section detailing these beautiful wagons and their owners.
As far as racing goes we've been to the track in Kelowna three times so far and actually went rounds last weekend during a double points weekend. On Saturday we found ourselves in the third round only to get defeated by last years points leader Ralph Poole. Talking to Ralph after the race, he informed me that he's been racing the same '67 Cuda since '71. I didn't feel bad anymore about losing. Sunday we we're pitted against some heavy hitters in Pro and managed to go all the way to the semi-finals. It's always a good feeling to be still racing at the end of the day when most everyone else is packing up their gear. Then they look over to see the big, bad wagon head to staging and the look on their faces just says "those guys are still in?"
Our next race is in Mission on July 28/29 for the Nostalgia weekend. We look forward to this weekend more than any other in our short little season. We will of coarse be towing the big beast with my '67 Polara and hope to be debuting our new support vehicle The Atomic Six. ('ll have photos soon) The Mighty Atomic is a '66 Belvedere wagon sporting a one barrel slant six. A little economy in our otherwise gluttonous fuel consuming lives.

2007-07-19T15:28:00.001-07:00

2007-07-19T15:22:00.001-07:00

2007-07-19T15:18:00.001-07:00

Presenting....Our Newest Sponsor

2007-01-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Ladyluck, originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Introducing.....Lady Luck Tattoo studio....the newest addition to our outstanding line-up of WOSN Sponsors. Donovan and his crew are avid car fans and we are happy to have them on board for the 2007 race season. Go check out their site....Lady Luck

Pat Wins...Other Guy Blows up

2006-08-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a video clip of a pass made last weekend at the old time drags in Mission. Thanks G2.

Farting in the face of adversity tour

2006-08-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

Air time, originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

A wiser man than me once said “if you don’t know where to start; a good place might be at the beginning.” So our story unfolds on Friday July 28, 2006 at 5:30 am gearing up for the big trek from Wagon’s of Steel North HQ. Although we’ve done this sort of trip a million times, something just didn’t feel right. I started the day by forgetting the proper receiver hitch in town that needed to be retrieved, and then promptly made a pot of coffee all over Chris’ kitchen floor. We finally got under way with all jinxes to our back. About twenty minutes out of Grand Forks while powering up a hill in the mighty Polara we heard a sound that could only be described as smashing bottles with a chain. Chris and I glared at each other in fear and pain. We immediately pulled to the side in time to see oil spewing from the back of the pan….she’s done. Not being the quitting type, we sent the boys off on a mission for cell service and rescue in Grahams 330 support wagon. It was now 9:00 am so I had a beer and waited. A little while later the team returned with news that a friend was borrowing Mode’s (team member not present) ’78 Jeep wagoneer and was coming to our aid. Within three hours, help had arrived and poor Malbotia was dragged back to HQ for further analysis.
Back on the road and all is well, right…well…pretty good I guess, except our maximum speed is maybe 45 mph and every hill means fuel vapor lock. We did manage to figure that one out by resting a full bag of ice on the frame rail over the incoming fuel line, atta boy Chris. Needless to say we made our destination in under 15 hours….well worth the extra time I assure you!
Saturday morning always comes early for me knowing that the race car needs to be checked over and jets changed for racing at sea level. Racing also starts early due to the high car count and the fact that they want everyone to get at least three passes in. Tech went smooth even though our belts were expired (woops) and we were off to staging almost immediately. First pass was a mid 11.70 followed by two slightly quicker runs, the last being an 11.63. Cocktail hour ensues and we fade to black.
Sunday morning the entire grounds awoke to torrential rain, it was a dismal sight to say the least and I felt sick to my stomach. Around 12:30 it was clear and they had the track dry but we sat in this bubble of passable weather that could change at any moment. We all went straight to elimination because of the time, no qualifying pass for us. Everyone seemed to be going faster and red lighting so caution was the word of the day. We dialed our same time as our last pass of 11.63 with plans of lifting if need be. The first two guys handed me the win with a red light and round three I won like a champ by lifting huge and almost nailing my dial. My last pass I broke-out big time even though I lifted (too late apparently) and still ended up going our fastest E.T. of 11.51 and our quickest sixty foot of 1.59. Had I stayed in it I may have run an 11.48 but we’ll never know. We made it to the last six cars standing in our field going four rounds at our all time favorite track. The team was all a-glow and we all went our separate ways, reminiscing on the events of the day.
p.s. editor’s note….the 1st official record of the front tire leaving the ground on launch!

Polara Pat

Victory on Thunder Mountain

2006-07-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

467_6771
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

It has been a long time since we've made a quality and informative update to our loyal readers, so here it is with fantastic photos as usual, by Mr. Jones. We just returned from race weekend #3 in Kelowna and despite an emergency head gasket swap on Saturday morning, everything seemed to go off without a hitch. The great and powerful Demonaco performed beautifully and managed to run consistant 7.80-7.85 all weekend long. Shaw Cable was on site Sunday to do a life-style piece on drag racing and decided that I would be a good candidate for a private interview (silly fools). Race #2 saw us in the semi-finals, landing a number three spot and a plaque. It was nice to finally break the first round curse. The real star was shining this last weekend as our own Graham Jones raced his '63 330 wagon like a champ cutting his first .000 light and going on to win the second round of King of the Hill awarding him with $90.00 cold cash that he respectfully donated back into our cause.

Our next race weekend will be in Mission on July 29-30 for the Langley Loafers Old time drags. This is of coarse our favorite and most high profile race of the season. Anyone in the lower mainland for this weekend should try and make an effort to come out and watch the festivities. You'll see front engine dragsters, altereds, Willeys, and if you're lucky full sized Dodge station wagons.

See you in the pits,
Polara Pat

Morning Dew

2006-07-10T18:02:00.000-07:00

467_6717
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

I-bent-these-with-my-hands

2006-05-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

I-bent-these-with-my-hands
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Sweet pipes.....“Rocktopus”

RACERS AGAINST RACISM

2006-05-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

Pretty...Beefy
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Well, you’re all probably wondering what’s happening with that old station wagon team from the Kootenays? And why are they so shitty at updating their site? I’ll tell you why. You see, the team has been busy building and thrashing since the car was stowed last Fall but its kind of boring to look at photos of dismantled transmissions and engines. Now we actually have some cool ass progress shots that look like we’ve been doing something. The motor has been gone over and re-assembled; the tranny has been rebuilt. We’ve had a custom chrome-moly driveshaft made with the biggest U-joints known to man. We have built a new 3rd member with 5.38 gears, new spool, bearings, heavy-duty yoke and straps. These should prove to be the ultimate eighth mile secret weapon. We added a set of 7:1 roller rockers to our valve train and installed an SFI approved super dampener. But the biggest news of all is seeing headway on our new three stage equal length headers. This has been kind of a pet project for Gabe and Mode since proper C-body headers are ridiculously expensive and still not right for our application. Many, many long hours have been poured into this project and if nothing else, they look cool as hell. We’ve actually gone so far as to name them the “Rocktopus” cuz damn, look at the freakin’ things. So that’s it for now, racing starts soon and there’s still so much to do. Fear not loyal followers for we all have strong backs and the will get the job done.

Polara Pat

click on photo for more photos......

Our Newest Sponsor

2006-02-24T14:01:00.000-08:00

Hi Race Fans. Just letting you all know about our newest sponsor. Our other friend Graham(G 2) has started his business called Thunderbucket Speed Equipment.
He offers original graphics on clothing, custom designs and skate decks. His stuff is dope and you'll see the WOSN team wearing his stuff around town and at the race track.

In other news....if you stop by Chris' shop on Saturday you'll find the whole WOSN Team working on Demonaco. Its going to be a big work day an I'm sure Polara Pat will update with details soon.

Cheers,
Graham (G 1)

Patch

2006-01-15T11:36:00.000-08:00

Patch
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

OK these are sweet. The WOSN team has to thank Gabe for this great Xmas present. These bad boys will be displayed proudly on our new uniforms. The WOSN team will be the envy of the pits.

Preventative Maintenance

2005-11-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

As promised to our readers and beloved Demonaco we moved the mother ship into the heated shop at WOSN H.Q. for a full shake-down and evaluation of any damage that may have ensued from our aggressive '05 season. It's been a long time since our last race so the team was excited to get our hands back on the big machine and annoy Chris' neighbors for one last time before Spring. The quick removal front clip that we came up with last year makes life extremely simple and accessible for maintenance and engine removal. So out comes the 440 and the 727 transmission that will both get treated to a mild overhaul and definitely some tranny upgrades. For now the wagon gets put to bed for the season while the crew works diligently on assessing the situation, beer drinking and settling for bench racing (sigh). So our to do list is as follows: purchase racing harmonic balancer; build back up 8 3/4 chunk with new spool and 5.36 gears (yowza); get custom driveshaft built with heavy-duty u-joints that we already have (thanks Jack); build custom fender well headers; upgrade carb with newer components; and the aforementioned motor and tranny massage. So as you can see it will be a busy Winter, but come Spring the sleeping giant will awaken and local domestic pets will once again cower in fear of the incomparable Demonaco.

Your host,
Polara Pat

View from the driver's seat

2005-10-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

cockpit9
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Click on this photo to see all the Kelowna season finale and all our other race photos.

Triple 0 light!!!!

2005-10-03T15:32:00.000-07:00

Alas the '05 racing season must come to a close, but it couldn't have happened on a better note, except for say...winning? As we all know, winning is for losers...right? Anyways, our final frosty weekend happened at the ever so lovely Thunder Mountain for some eighth mile madness. Saturday afternoon ended up getting cancelled by a torrential downpour, but since we already had three passes in the morning we couldn't bitch too much. Later that evening it got so cold that all the tents and race cars were covered in a thick sheet of ice. We all managed to try and negate the cold by destroying no less than twelve cases of beer and a mickey of 'Golden Wedding'. I know you don't have to drink to have a good time, but it sure helps and it makes sleeping in my frosty wagon tomb a lot more tolerable. Sunday was beautiful weather wise, though still really cold and the race program seemed to be moving slower than molasses in...well...Thunder Mtn. The car was in her glory and managed to pull off our best E.T. of 7.84 and fastest speed of 89.4 mph. Knowing full well that we always slow down after lunch we dialed in at 7.90 hoping to understand the mood Demonaco would be in. Alas, the moons of Jupiter were in a line and a strong tail wind sneakily picked up. I staged a little deeper than usual to cut a perfect .000 reaction time and since it was running better than ever I simply couldn't bring myself to sandbag and broke out huge with a 7.85. It wouldn't have really made a difference since my opponent managed to nail his dial bang on; besides, I really don't mind losing with a break out and a triple 0 that some racers never manage to achieve. It almost makes it look like we know what we're doing; we'll try not to let it go to our heads but we're so damn giddy over it. We actually managed to get twelve race days in this season which is great since we're so far from every track. Now the big machine goes into storage and we begin our Winter shake-down and upgrade list. Look forward to updates and the new wagon owners profile page. Until next time thanks to all of our sponsors and friends for supporting us and we hope to see you all for the '06 season.

Your pal,
Polara Pat

Kelowna Pics

2005-08-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Thunder On The Mountain

2005-08-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well another successful weekend at Thunder Mtn. Raceway. As usual success here is translated into good weather, nothing major broken and a good time had by all. The crew was small this weekend, consisting of only Gabe, Chris and myself (No Mode, Graham or peanut gallery) which by no means affected our ability to rock the house. Demonaco was under heavy scrutiny to perform after our mysterious drop in E.T.s at Mission, so we were testing lots of different factors to try and determine the problem. We were also dialing in our new adjustable mono-leaf system to accompany our Cal-Tracs and after a little tweaking we did manage to get our 60 foot time back down to where it should be in the 1.67 sort of range. The down side is that the car was kicking back a little attitude in response with the kaffing of our main power solenoid, which we bypassed, then on the last pass before eliminations the shifter jammed resulting in a pathetic 1st gear run. I can't believe how boring it is to go slow, I'm like a vampire with the sweet taste for bloody speed. Then as per usual we got knocked out in the first round. I treed the crap out of that 454 Chevelle but alas the hoodoo voodoo was in control of this one and again Demonaco slowed almost 3/10s. So it's back to the shop for a little repair and analyses to see what's up with our wild machine. Hopefully just a fried plug or something simple like that and we'll be back on our wheels in no time. The next Scheduled race for us is back at the Mtn. for their season closer on Oct. 1,2 which is always a good time and we are hoping to be accompanied by our friends and sponsor BC-DC for a little rock sensation on Saturday night. Until then it's back to the salt mines, oh did I ever mention how expensive this hobby is? If you're ever thinking of getting into drag racing head-long then I encourage lots of good sponsors and at least four kick ass partners as we have, a second mortgage would never hurt mind you.

Polara Pat

1st round of eliminations

2005-08-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

1st round of eliminations
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Nostalgia drags

Well our big weekend in Mission came and went and I can honestly say that I'm feeling a little boxing day sadness with it's conclusion. Mission is without question the coolest place to race, (for us hill-billies anyways) with their 24 feet above sea level elevation, concrete launch pad well past the 60 foot mark and the overall professional and somewhat intimidating manner that they run their facility. It sounds a bit ironic, but our twenty foot behemoth was a little fish in the big pool. This trip was also monumental for the team since we used my '67 Polara (Malbotia) as our new official tow rig to wrangle the race car all the way to the coast with only a flat tire on the trailer and running out of gas....both ways, woops. Apparently "E" really does mean empty. Oh well, the big car was in it's glory when we fed her a little leaded 100 octane, like big block junk food. The other first for the team was the debut road trip for Gabe's '65 Polara wagon as the hot floored support vehicle. Needles to say the entourage was quite a site to be seen and the high speed thumbs-up were ever present for the entire voyage. The turn out in Mission was insane and the cars were freakin' gorgeous, most of which appeared to be Mopars. We were mildly plagued with fueling issues as we tried to tune our big machine for sea level. According to all the big shooters with their weather stations in their enclosed trailers, the adjusted elevation was more like 1200-1400 feet. Which I pretty much don't understand at all, why can't they just tell me it's a bad air day and be done with it. Demonaco ran almost three tenths slower than Spokane and despite our multitude of jet swaps we finally decided to just run it and try and hit our number. We got three hits on Saturday then only one more qualifying on Sunday before eliminations. In an attempt to avoid the big red I staged as shallow as possible and ran a .124 reaction time for both of my passes. Unfortunately the Camaro I was up against was having a really good day and beat me by one hundredth of a second. Now that really puts the technical aspect of this wacky sport into perspective, regardless, a loss like that is still kick ass since it was so close and I didn't shit the bed. All said we had a killer weekend and once again didn't blow anything up, so all is well that ends well.

Polara Pat.

Opening Weekend @ Thunder Mtn

2005-06-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

kelowna2
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

The adventures continue the following weekend at Thunder Mtn outside of Kelowna for their season opener. Although Kelowna only offers an eighth mile track, it has become our favorite place to race. The people are cool and they seem to like our whacky style as well as welcoming us as new blood that seems to be at a premium these days. Kelowna sits at a whopping 4700 feet above sea level, so if you can make your machine run good here then it will probably be about four tenths faster at sea level. We were running slightly slower compared to what our eighth mile times were in Spokane with a best of 7.74 @ 88 mph. Regardless, we got fourteen passes in over the weekend with no mechanical failure again and by our last pass you could almost see through our slicks. Eighth mile is very forgiving on parts and our engine temperature stayed as cool as a big block cucumber could. Stay tuned for more racing news and if anyone would like to join the maniacal festivities, we will be in Mission on July 30 and 31st for the Langley Loafers old time drags. This is a kick ass event that all the vintage hot rods come out of the wood work for, so see you there you big fat square.

Polara Pat

Spokane Race Weekend

2005-06-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

spokaneraceway1
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

Well things have been pretty busy around the WOSN camp so we haven't had much time to tune in our fans to what's going on. On June 18th the team headed South to Spokane for their Saturday night race and Sunday nostalgia race and show and shine. Upon arrival an hour before the gates were to open Saturday afternoon, we were informed that racing was cancelled due to an ominous forecast for the evening. The track officials went home, it rained for five minutes and the sun came out for a beautiful evening with a mild tail wind. We were pissed, but we've come to know Spokane as one of the worst managed tracks of all time anyways, so it was no surprise. Sunday more than made up for our bitterness with a perfect race day. Demonaco was chomping at the bit and ready to fly off the handle. The car was consistent as a Swiss watch and turned an all time record for us with an 11.55 @ 115 mph!!! More than we could have hoped for and nothing broken, what more can you ask for, really.

Polara Pat

Rubber Storm

2005-06-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Mode's photo
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

One hot burn-off for our single pass at Spokane due to a sheared tail shaft on the old 727 transmission. Awwww.

Cancelled Race Day

2005-05-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

2005_0424visit0020
Originally uploaded by Wagons of Steel North.

The first official post of the WOSN race team. The plan was to get to Spokane Raceway this weekend for some racing but the weather did not co-operate and the plan had to be scrapped. There have been two race weekends so far and I'll let Polara Pat fill in the details.
Graham