September 2006 Silver State report by Mad Dawg Antenucci:

Thanks again JB for being there (again)...Seeing you, Chuck and Larry made me feel pretty confident. Espially when my ignition fell out (bwahahaha) on Saturday right after we got everything else done to the car....still you were able to fix it!!!

There's no "I" in team and even though there were only "2" Panteras out of 130 entry's Team Pantera Racing still got picked as the "BEST TURNED OUT TEAM"....There were 7 other official teams from Corvette to Viper and I say official because we only had 2 Pantera's in Ely!!!!! But its a "People's Choice" award thing...and the people of Ely have spoken!! ;-] Seriously, it was a trip because a good 95% of the field were new or late model show room stock Z06's, Vipers and GT40's. Several Ferrari's....many high end exotics including a McClaren that had raced at Bonneville still no one made 200 MPH Sunday.

Okay, down to race day....26F Sunday morning at 6am, frost on the cars....but it warmed to 56F by 8AM. I was the 4th car off the grid...In front of me was a Viper, followed by two Corvette Z06's and behind me were another Z06 and a race prepared Mustang Cobra....also in my same class were 3 "GT-40's", a Ferrari F-40 driven by veteran driver Rick Doria, an Ultima GTR, another 6 or so Corvettes and a couple more Vipers....a total of 26 entries in the Grand Sport Division (150 class). Some heavy-HEAVY metal. Kinna just felt right if you know what I mean. Quiet unassuming Pantera and owner surrouned by high dollar machines!
JUST WAY TOO COOL...

So when the flag dropped I got a good tire smoking start fish tailing away from the start line....at the quarter mile mark I was clocked at 122mph and by the time I got to the first sweeper turn a few hundred feet away I was nearing 150. While the weather conditions were perfect for a high speed run there was a serious 10-15 MPH "pucker-factor cross winds to contend with....I ran the Pantera as JB said up to 170-175 for a while but settled back down to 155-160 through the first 45 or so MILES because wind was pretty wicked at high speed. There is a section of bad road with dips and moguls that gets worse every year from mile 48 to just before the Canyon road...I bottomed out once on one dip and a few miles later did it again....tires screeching against the car wasn't a warm fuzzy...JB pointed it out to me after the run so I was lucky I didn't blow a tire on the dips.....so best I could do on Sunday was a 148 MPH average.

The start was delayed due to a late closure of a side road gate and by 8:45 when they finally started cars down the course at one minute intervals temps raised to 65 then 70F so weather was perfect after 3 days of snow, ice and rain...By the time I got to the finish line it was 75-80F...To the credit of Dick Drenske's NASCAR rad and other mods I finished my run with a 180F oil temp and a 175 water temp on the NASCAR rad which is the lowest operating temps I have seen in 10 years. The engine was AWSOME....and ran flawlessly....thank you Russ Fulps and thank you Dick Drenske for setting up the Pantera. I also want to thank the Brazilian Girls for the 55 gal drum of 110 Octane race gas! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!!

Later JB and Chuck came in with their Pantera to the finish line to lots of applause and cheers....I think some of the Viper, Ferrari and Z06 guys once again got a lesson in how "OLD SCHOOL RULES".....JB and Chuck in spite of a fouled plug still averaged 133 MPH and I know the cross winds didn't help his run either but it sure felt good to finish and then see JB's yellow Pantera coming into the finish line.....

RJ Gottlieb ran "Big Red" in Unlimited but the best he could do on Sunday was only 168 although he has run a best of 192 average one other time. The fastest car Sunday was driven by Mike Borders which was a x-winston cup race car and it averaged like 187 mph which is amazing considering cross winds on course...still a long way from the record of 207 average over the 90 miles courseset back in '2000....just not a good day to break records but a damn good day to finish.

There was no more then half a dozen cars out of those 130 as old as our Pantera's out of the field of 130 cars and that didn't go unnoticed at the Banquet and Awards Dinner Sunday night......... neither did the fact that THREE late model Corvettes including one new ZO6 DNF'd along the way. Corvette guys got nailed pretty hard at the awards banquet Sunday night...to add insult to injury one new ZO6's car alarm went off at Ash Springs while he was refueling after the race and he couldn't shut it down for a full 5 minutes...I finally walked over pulled out his key and clicked the alarm OFF...dUMB ASS!

I got to see some positive results to the aero and cooling mods on the Pantera. In some photos I looked at the rubber bolt on side skirts that Dick had added to the Pantera and they seemed to definately help high speed stability....so did lowering the Pantera except for the dips/moguls but that is another challenge for next year...

John Schneider (Dukes of Hazard) brought the General Lee (69 Hemi Charger) and finished at something like 125 mph (hehe) and John, RJ, Larry and I all shared a table together laughing and BS'ing at the awards banquet which was cool. RJ said he was impressed with our cars and our enthusiasm and Friday night we got to see an advance film clip of John Schneiders new movie (McCormick & Company) a movie about a guy who races what "looks-like" an old beat up 69 Charger which really has a 511ci Hemi for rich guys pink slips... so he has a garage of like 50 high end exotics he has won in illegal street racing! But in the movie he stole MY FIRE idea because one of the movie's tricks shows he has a gas butane burner near his window grills that shoots flames up in the air to fool his competitors into thinking his Dodge Charger is ON FIRE....soooooo who do you think he got THAT idea from?!!!!!!!! ;-] Anyway, JB liked the movie....think I fell asleep and everyone had a good time.

Too much more to write about but for sure I will be back next spring...gonna have to work on suspension travel to deal with those road dips otherwise I couldn't be happier with the way the Pantera handled and ran....THANKS TO JB, CHUCK, LARRY, AND ALL OF YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY BAD BOY ANTICS AND THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT.

GOOD TIMES!

md