The following update was sent via e-mail by one of Ned’s crew members, Paul
Spegal.  I’m posting it here per his request. – John
*************************************

Robbie is having trouble getting on the net while in Daytona so he asked me
to give everyone an update on our team’s progress in Daytona. I’m not real
good at this sort of thing so please bear with me.

Though we were allowed to put the haulers in the Dash compound and get tires
mounted, NASCAR did not allow us to do anything else on Monday, so our real
work started on Tuesday.Tuesday was tech day. This means lots of meetings,
working on cars, pushing cars into long lines to be inspected, attend more
meetings to learn NASCAR wishes to keep us on our toes and is changing the
rules… again, working on cars some more, pushing cars back through the
tech line…. you get the point. The biggest issue this year is the shocks
and springs. Robbie work all day just trying to find a set of shocks and
springs that NASCAR would accept. As Robbie can attest, this was some what
of a moving target. If the right person wined, the rules changed. NASCAR
informed us all cars that qualified would have the shocks and springs dynoed
after qualifying. Anyone that wanted to test their stuff on the NASCAR Dyno
could do so during the week. Robbie got in line early. But the NASCAR
officials were taking 20 to 30 minutes per team to dyno the shocks. The
first set Robbie took through were not within the specs so alternatives had
to be found. Considering there were 54 teams in line the were not likely to
get through all of them before qualifying on Thursday. So we paid an
independent to dyno several sets until Robbie had a set he was comfortable
with to run on the car and that NASCAR would accept. By the end of the day
we had accomplished most of what we had set out to and the car, at that
time, passed tech and NASCAR said we could race.

Wednesday was the first day of practice. In the morning we made some last
minute adjustments to the chassis and took the car one more time through
tech. Ned took a couple of laps to warm the car up and then went for a
couple of laps for time. He we doing laps in the low 57 second range, very
respectable compared to most of the other teams. The times were near the top
ten. Then Robbie decided we needed to try a different chassis set up. This
one did not work and put the car in the mid 58 second range. This ended our
first practice. Allen, the engine builder, Robbie and Ned all got their
heads together and came up with a plan for the second practice. They were
going to change everything. Carburetors, springs, shocks, chassis setups,
and most anything else they could think of. The strategy worked and we broke
into the upper 56 second range. The final practice ended and we spent the
remainder of the day make a couple of additional changes to the car to
satisfy a couple new rule changes such as the size of the bolt that holds
the deck lid tethers. Someone thought they should be bigger so they made it
so. Gawd I love NASCAR.

Continued….