Well I figured I'd break it down for everyone, since I know sooner or later someone will mention how they saw me and how bad I sucked at Vegas this past weekend- which I admittedly did. Let me clue u in on how it all went down for me-

Wed I flew in from Chicago (where I live) to the bay area (where the car lives) to meet up with my crew and car. The car was supposed to be completey ready, packed up on the trailer, and ready to go to Vegas. My volunteer crew had just rebuilt the top end with head studs, rebuilt stock heads, SCE copper head gaskets, and fresh gaskets all around. The car had run on the dyno, made 415hp to the tires, then was receiving some final touches (wire harnesses cleaned up, headers wrapped, etc).
When I landed, I was greated with some very very bad news. Milkshake in the oil. It was midnight Wed, and we were supposed to leave Thursday at 8 AM to make it to Vegas in time for our ONLY PRACTICE. Instead, me and my one remaining buddy tore the car down. He also said it appeared the rear main or the back of the oil pan had been leaking, so we took the trans out too. We had the intake torn apart, heads off, pan, and tranny out by 4am.
At 8 AM, we were down at the parts store buying new gaskets and searching for ARP stud sealer- yes, its that specific. I called in another buddy for help. We cleaned all the gasket surfaces, and discovered the lack of RTV between the intake and cylinder head seemed to be the cause of the leak. This, plus the pressure test of the cooling system forced the water into the intake manifold/valley area. We were'nt 100% confident of the head studs not allowing water to climb up the threads and into the valve covers, so we removed, brushed, resealed, and reinstalled every stud. Since the trans was off, I replaced the rear main seal AND oil pan gasket- I didnt want to redo this again. We thrashed to put the motor back together, and buttoned the car up. It was far past our noon cutoff to make it in time for practice. We had fiberglass in our arms, hands and backs (from the new header wrap), were nasty filthy and just trashed (It had been 100 plus degrees all day). As soon as the car fired, we were putting it on the trailer. We left the bay area at 11:30 pm, greasy hand prints still all over the car. My buddy and I traded shifts, and drove all night and arrived in Vegas at 8:30 AM. We checked into our hotel, and slept til 12:30 since the track wasnt open til 1pm. We got to the track, where we met our new fuel pump (summit had shipped me one earlier in the week which arrived broken at the pressure fitting). We dropped the gas tank, and replaced the pump. The car ran, but was idling at 2200 rpm. After spraying break clean and searching for any kind of vaccuum leak, we messed with the idle air c.v., recycled the key, and the problem seemed to cure itself.
Now just barely cured, it was time to take our short practice session. Several crashes in the session allowed me to take only 2 laps-- not nearly enough reconnaissance. As I lined up for another run, a new problem surfaced. The car was at 220 and climbing. The fans were on, but still the temp climbed. Up until this point, the fans always dropped the temp to 180. With my car at the line for its first qual run, the car shut off and fans on, the temp rose past 230. Not wanting to waste a run, I went out anyway. I dont exactly recall what I did, but I'm fairly sure I couldnt hold the drift in the initial 1100 ft long drift, and straightened out. Whatever happened, it wasnt good. As soon as I cleared the course, I shut the car off and coasted at about 50 mph to allow air to move through the radiator. The guage read 250+ degrees!! Once I made it to the pits, I rushed to open the hood and to my shock, found the fans not turning. The fuse had popped- I ran to my drivers door where I ripped some old speaker wire from the stock speaker location to use as a fuse bypass. My buddy struggled to get the fuse out- when I took over, we discovered not only had the fuse popped, but the heat of th raidator had welded the fuse into place. I bit through the wires, and twisted them toghether until my buddy returned with a splice-connector. Reconnected, and aided by a pump sprayer full of water the car quickly dropped down to a normal temp of 180. Once cooled, the car seemed to run fine. Long live the 5.0. Crisis averted, I had only one more chance to make the show. My second run went better- but not by much. I cleared the first corner (I think), made the course until the 3rd inner clipping point- where I could tell I would come up short- I yanked a handful of e-brake (to extend the drift), went to a clutch kick- but was still just short of the apex. I clipped the plastic barricade, not hard enought to rip the bumper off, but hard enough to force me to lift out of the drift and straighten out- giving me a damn zero.
That in a nutshell, was my weekend. little sleep, far too much work, an no result. So goes the story of racing- this is one of the things we are faced to accept- complete, and utter defeat.