Steve Zicht wrote:Frankly, this was the last thing I wanted to see after the Shoot Out was over. So if you critics had all this information at your disposal, first place to last place finishers in both engine contests, what would you do with the information ? Start a negative remarks crusade against some carburetor guy that just missed the top place finish by 1/3 of a single horsepower ? Or an accelleration speed or timed ET that was a fraction of a second off from the first place carburetor ?
It was extremely difficult for me to convince these carburetor specialty shops that this was a friendly and legit get-to-gether of the best carb shops in the nation. For nearly 40 years since the first carb modification shops started to appear, there were shops that were considered innovators and brilliant, and other shops that recognized that they could take advantage of racers with ' shiny and polished ' venturies with ' pretty ' finishes with very exagerated performance claims and hefty price tags with them.
One of the most respected race carburetor builders in the nation. Dave Braswell, placed second overall in the tuning phase of the big block shoot out. As a matter of fact, Dave was one of the very first guys to start the race carb modification business so many years ago. So now what ? You critics going to call him in his Arizona shop and poke fun of him that he didnt blow away all the other competitors ? If you do, youll probably get a real fast education about carburetor tuning and the million and one ' variables ' that exist in tuning these things right before he slams the phone in your ear !
That being said, what about the shops that didnt even make the ' elite eight ' ? You can find each and every one of their shops phone number on their web site and you can ask them how they all placed in both engine platforms yourself.
Frankly again,some of the shops that did show up were still possibly ' uneasy ' about what they were getting into. Perhaps they too felt this was some kind of conspiracy or set up to ' expose ' their power secrets and BLP would have all this critical and key information to use against all their competitors and gain a very unfair advantage in the aftermarket. Duh ! Why do you think I insisted on a neutral ' judge ' such as David Vizard to monitor both events in its entirety ? David called all the shots ! BLP gave David that power to make decisions and he was the ' master and commander ' of both engine contests.
Now that the first contest is over, I have had nothing but possitive feedback about the ' shoot out ' and it was the damn best time that they could have ever had. Imagine, your greatest business rival from another shop that youve never met in person before coming up to you to congratulate you for your carburetors performance. Im quite certain that this may have happened more than once at the shoot out and it would have been priceless to capture a photograph of all these ' top notch ' and fierce competitors laughing and joking together and actually discussing fuel system tech talk with one another ! And to top that, some guys were actually helping one another with tuning advice on the dyno and admiring and complimenting other shops workmanship on their respective entries. Who in the world would have ever dreamed that this meeting was even remotely possible ?
THIS WAS A TRIAL CONTEST !!! We were testing the waters to see if we could make this kind of contest an annual event. YES! Their were bugs in the system, I freely admit that but BLP had their stuff together which limited the glitches to a very few. Keep in mind, I only persuaded 50% of the carb shops to show up. Some ' no shows ' were still most likely suspicious of the whole thing and simply wanted to watch from the sidelines to see what happened. I have the distint feeling that more shops will be signing up next year.
NEXT YEAR WILL BE EVEN BETTER with a different kind of carburetor competition with some kind of scoring system. Id love to see more sponsors, prize money and a much improved web casting with better camera angles as to it was difficult to see the types of carbs on the dyno. Who says that the power and acceleration numbers cant be seen live as it happens on a computer screen ? Anything is possible now..
WE ARE COUNTING ON THE FORUM READERS ... to give contest and scoring suggestions for the next Shoot Out. It may not be at the same time next year either. Who says it cant be held at another time of the year ?? Were wide open to possitive suggestions. Mike Law would certainly entertain some cool ideas as to he monitors this thread for feedback.
For the ' nay sayers and critics ' that still will argue that this initial shoot out gave you nothing in valid information about the carburetor entries, wait till next time. Our mission this time was to extend a hand out in friendship that this event in the future could be the most fun event to look forward to by the nations race carburetor shops with a special contest that was exclusively designed and organized specificaly for them. Weve nowhere to go now but up and make this better each year with your help with possitive input ! Not negative remarks ! SZ
Steve, we as onlookers don't even know how much HP difference there was between the very best and the worst, not to mention each individual carburetor. So what purpose did it serve those expecting to see what a high dollar custom carb could actually do? The way it turned out, without any kind of reference is disappointing.
SKeown
I understand your panties are in a twist because the SV1 didn't live up to the hype, let it go. [DELETE THIS POST] me some of you guys carry on like princesses... 
