Pinks All Out

A little education first - Pinks all out is a show on Speed TV where cars drag race for cash. My little sis thought it was a track meet for breast cancer. So the original name came from the fact that guys would race their cars for the pink slips -ownership of the vehicle. Now they race in this tv show for $10,000 cash and a tool chest.
It starts out with about 400 cars and they run usually 2-3 qualifying runs to get their time slot and eliminate those that don't win. Then Rich - the host - chooses the most common time slot where there are at least 16 cars within a couple hundreths of a second - and those are the ones that race in the Sweet Sixteen. These guys race in the finals that night and try to win the money. Here is Rich, the host, ranting about racers with antifreeze in their cars. It takes forever to clean up the track after a spill so we had 2 back to back and Rich threatened a lifetime ban from any of his shows if you violated this.
So my father in law - Ralph - took his 1958 Edsel that he has completely rebuilt and likes to race. It has a 514 engine and nitrous so it is pretty stinkin' fast considering how heavy of a car it is.
James and I drove up from Austin to the Texas Motorplex in Ennis. We didn't get to stay for everything because James had to work on Sunday at 8 am, but we got there around 9 am Saturday morning and left around 9:30 pm.
Here are the Fleischman boys with the Edsel.



Above is Ralph gearing up to race and burning the tires.
We spent the day at the track watching Ralph race as well as a lot of other cars. We also got to spend the day with Dan and Susan and the kids and then Mark and Lori were kind enough to let us hang out at their RV to watch the races. That was way more comfortable than the metal stands in the sun. Thanks Mark and Lori! Uncle Merlin and Cousin Scott both drove up early on Saturday morning to see all the excitement and races. It was fun to spend time with them. Dan and Scott were catching up while waiting on the food.
Here is a picture of Pat helping guide Ralph on to the dragstrip.

The Fleischman boys were all so excited to see the Edsel do a wheelie on the strip.

And he is off down the quarter mile.
There were luckily only minor issues that had to be fixed. Here is Pat hard at work.
The boys pushing the Edsel into the lane for his elimination round.

Rich liked the Edsel a lot too. I think it is just very different from the cars that are normally on the show. It was even a featured car which means that Ralph got interviewed and hopefully will be shown on the show this summer.

Lane didn't like being left out so he is showing what a great crew chief he can be.


Ralph won the race for qualifying runs and wasn't eliminated.
They finally announced who the racers would be for the final 16 and Ralph missed it just barely. We were so hopeful that he would get in. Dan and Susan had a friend who made it into the final 16 and then one of their friends from the Mustang club in Amarillo also made it. Here is Casey - one of the friends racing. His brother raced in San Antonio last year and actually won. Unfortunately both of the friends were eliminated pretty early but there is always Houston!