Hi Everyone,

Wow, what a long week!

The Rally was a lot of fun, as usual.

Friday was hectic for everyone, and only a few of us were able to get in town in time for Friday's event, so we blew off the concert and just went out and had dinner & drinks, etc. Thanks to Tom for staying with us at Beach Ford Friday during the afternoon & early evening while our new F-150 was picked out & delivered!

Saturday at the drag strip was a blast, and a riot! Anita, my wife, made her first-ever passes down the 1/4 mile, and shame of all shame, her new F-150 (4X4 Supercab loaded Lariat w/Offroad, towing, everthing, 5600 lbgs. worth!) was the slowest vehicle there from our group, with a whopping 18.44 @ 80 mph pass. (Have no fear, not for long) While she didn't back up after staging as a couple newbies did last year, she red-lighted on her first poass and stopped!!! Then figured out she needed top get back ontot eh gas, so we didn't even count her first pass which was a 19-seocnd run. Interestingly enough, even with as slow as that lumering giant was to get off the line and out of the hole, she had the best reaction times of any of the first-timers there with our group to the track, so she has some potential! (If I don't say that, I think my demise may be immediate and painful!)

Andthensometoo's friend Dave made his first passes down the drag strip that day, with a bone-stock 2001 Ranger 4.0 SOHC automatic, he was ripping off some nice 16.6 ET's, and it is a 4200 lb. truck with 4-door, 4X4, Offroad, etc., and with 4.10 limited slip. He is being awarded the F-150 Online shirt for the slowest vehicle even though he cleaned Anita's clock by almost 2 seconds, as Anita is of course inelegible for any prizes etc. at the Rally being my wife, go figure, and fair's fair. So while Dave wasn't the slowest by *far* (he was 2nd slowest), we just have to award him Lew's shift on general principle.

Sunday we had the brunch at 11 am like last year, with a light attendance, as it was raining hard all day, to the point that the Show & Shine event was completely rained out altogether.

We are still awarding the prizes that were to be given out at the Show & Shine that was rained out, we're giving the Superhcip to ATST's frine Dave, to help him start his mods to his Ford truck, and to Tom Witkop (I sure hope I remembered the spelling correctly, I didn't check our records Tom!) we have awarded the Air Force One kit.

During the weekend, we also added 2 more new F-150's to our stable here at Performance Products.... the first is the F-150 Lariat (read: pig-slow, won't fall out of a tree) for Anita, and second, yes, we took the plunge, and are picking up our new 2001 silver Lightning this afternoon, in fact we're cheating a little bit and closing shop a couple hours early just to go get it.

These will be our new project vehicles here at Performance Products, which we will carefuly document all mods & results on to assist other F-150 owners even more than we always have.

All in all it was a lot of fun, the biggest turnout this year was at the drag strip.

We have plenty of pictures, etc., and we'll be getting them into the Webmaster here shortly for posting, etc.Thanks to everyone who came & we're adding a lot more to the next event, & we'll be back at the Ford plant for the next Rally as well, this year they're doing the addition to the plant so we couldn't get in this Summer, but we'll be back there next Rally.

Thanks to everyone who came from near and far, & we're looking forward to the next event!

 

Mike, no mods for her truck. FINALLY, there is a truck that is slower than mine !!!
I am glad everyone had a good time, too bad about the Sunday showers but you can't control Mother Nature. Maybe next year, we can get some Canucks down to the event if none was able to make it this year. If a "CERTAIN" canuck goes Mike, you better have that silver shadow ready to fly down the track !!!

Have Fun & Keep on Truckin'
Dean

 

Congradulations Mike!
I thought you would end up getting the Lightning. I thought the white looked better. After going to the strip though, the silver is deffinitly rarer. At the strip there were a few whites a few blacks and a whole bunch of reds. I don't think I saw any silver. Whatever the color, it is a beautiful machine!
I hope you get a chance to really enjoy the it.
Don't forget about us non-Lightning owners!
I look forward to hearing about your experiances!
I hope Anita is getting used to her new ride. It is sweet. I'll bet it dosen't feel so big now. She won't want to drive anything smaller after being in the Lariat fo a while.
I had a great time at the rally. I will try real hard to make it back next year. My girl will come to I hope.
Thanks for everything Mike!
Tom

 

Well Mike, sounds like you had some fun despite the weather.

Maybe I'll make the next one, if Uncle Sam permits!

 

Mike, Congrats to you and Anita on your new rides.
Nice "easy way" to break in her truck, at a drag strip!! Did you make any runs with the "Bone Stock" Mark!! I remember last year's story!!

 

I'm back!
Whew, what a drive.
We got in two big traffic jams on the way and didn't get there untill 4:45pm friday.
I'll prolly do a simular write up like last year. But this year because I am on a different server, I will be adding some vacation wallpaper shots.
We are breaking in FastCloud good. He got his first Ford Truck and went on his First "Ford" rally (I didn't tell him it was a F150 rally -ooops!) which was also his first long road trip. We put about 2k miles on that puppy, and for once I didn't have to do all the driving. (even though he thinks I did most of the driving from the passenger seat) All three of us packed in that Ranger was interesting, and I must say 4 wouldn't have fit.
Many Thanks goes to:
Lstrikes for hooking up FastClouds Ford lighted logo that he installed, but was using the 'direct battery connection' (wire manually inserted onto battery post) so that now it works with the lower driving lights (and without opening the hood to turn on and off).
Mike for putting this thing all together an steering us around as usual. Anyone thinking about going next time, do not worry about doing this trip. Once you get to Norfolk, you will have all the help you need getting around.
Anita for being gracious putting up with all of this. Even though some might say a Lariat is just compensation, I know she really wanted a slightly smaller vehical.
Both Mike and Anita for being just Mike and Anita, good ole down home folks that put things aside and worked just as hard to be there as the rest of us.
Thanks also from the bottom of my son (literally) to Anita for letting him ride in her cushy new lariat on the way to the track.

wittom: You got guts to come all that way by yourself. Taking your GF would have been a good test of her "Ford worthyness" but you'll have plenty of time for that later.

Now, who was that in the Red supercab with the driver door stripped?

I'll let you all know when the pics are up.

 

Glad that eveyone who made it had a good time.

 

Mike,

Again, thanks for your efforts setting up the weekend. Too bad rain got in the way...

We had a spot for one more L in here:



Next year, I expect to see you in there!!!

The one run I got was excellent... 12.58 @ 107.37.

1.78 60'
8.001 in the 1/8

Bettina and I were pretty psyched.

BTW, that was pump gas, fiberglass lid on and all seats in the truck....

Thanks again

 

hey fellas,
i missed the rally. i was in va. beach though. got in too late friday to try and catch the concert, sounds like a good thing, btw. the drag racing isn't my thing so sat. was meant to be a beach day anyway. and lo and behold it started raining sat. nite and still was sunday so i didn't try to make the show and shine. my first trip to va. beach was a great time. sorry i missed meeting everyone, the time and weather just didn't work out for me. oh well, there's always next year, right? Rich.

 

Hi Wittom,

Thanks!

I had such a great time getting to meet and know you a bit, thanks so much for making it down and hanging out with us. And by all means, please do bring your girlfriend next time, we'll make sure she has fun too!

That's right, you were there with us at the dealership when I was looking really hard at that silver Lightning, but still walked away from it that day. I test drive it while Anita was in the settlement office and couldn't see me, though I must confess I told her I was going to drive it, I keep *no* secrets from her! I decided to do it the next day at the track, and actually called Jimmy Lee from the track and told him to do the deal from VMS! He then delivered it up here to me on Tuesday, 1 week ago today.

Though I didn't remember seeing one, there was in fact a silver Lightning (just 1 of the 15-20 we had there that day) at the track on Saturday, as can be seen in Brian K's group Lightning shot in this same thread. Silver seems to be the rarest color from what I can tell, I haven't actually checked production numbers to verify if that is really true or not. Though white looked good too, silver it had to be.

We'll have a lot of fun next year too, much more, so we look forward to seeing you and your better half there too!

 

Hey ATST,

Thanks for making it, we really enjoyed seeing you again this year!

I'm sure your son got tired of riding on that cramped jump seat in the back of that Ranger, poor guy!

I still can't believe how quick that little truck was at the track, Dave ran some excellent times for a bone-stock & heavy supercab 4X4 Offroad Ranger, 16.6 was sweet, and beat Anita's bone-stocker by almost 2 full seconds! (that won't last long, she gave me no end of grief over that!)

We had a traffic jam too, from Hampton up to Richmond, and then it all cleared out & we made good time. The first 100 miles took almost 5 hours, but the rest flew by. We found out they had the Special Olympics as well as 5 other major sporting events in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area that week, and that's why the traffic was like it was when we left earlier than normal on that Sunday, usually it's not nearly that bad.

Don't forget to give me a call so we can send Dave the Superchip he won for the rained-out Show & Shine event! that will help his ranger to knock some more time off of his ET's and get him off to a good start onhis mods!

All the best to you, your family, Dave & everyone else!

 

Hi Dean (IzzyEddy),

Yeah, well, bring it on down, we have something for you!

Serioously, we missed you guys, it would have been great to meet you, Neal, JMC, etc., and we look forward to that for the next Rally!

 

Hi Brian K.,

Yes, it looks like there was room for just 1 more Lightning in there, I agree!

Actually, the minute I turned away from talking to you was when I decided to do it, and called my guy there from the track the minute I turned away from you, and had him to deliver it on Tuesday!

So yes, I finally did it, a Lightning now sits in the driveway, and it's about time! I'm sure I'll be calling you for various Lightning tips that only an owner would know!

Thanks for making it again this year Brian & we'll be doing it again hopefully before the year is out!

That was a *wicked* quick & fast run you made with all your weight on board, you were about the only guy who didn't have his seats stripped out, etc. Good for you!

Talk to you soon,

 

Hi Rich,

Yep, there's always the next Rally!