For the casual observer, it would appear that every drag racer is having a blast at the track. You see them in the pits hanging around, or under their car, always doing something. They pull their race cars up to the staging lanes with big smiles on their faces, looking forward to their next pass. They do their burnouts, head up to the line, and make their pass. Whether they make a full pass or not is inconsequential, they’re doing something they love so they must be having a good time.

Those are some white legs sticking out from under Clements Renegade Mustang. This was how her Mustang looked many times throughout the weekend at Norwalk.

Well, contrary to popular belief, perception is not always reality.

Take NMRA racer Valerie Clements for example. She comes from a drag racing family, started racing junior dragsters as a youth, and now has her own Mustang to race with her brother Alton in the ever-competitive Renegade class. She can vouch for the fact that drag racing isn’t always fun and games.

Going into the Norwalk race, Clements and her crew changed from a belt-driven ProCharger to a gear-driven set-up. “The car’s wiring had also been redone since we were previously facing problems with that,” Clements said. The first couple passes the engine wouldn’t come up on rpm, with resulting lazy 60-ft times, so fellow Renegade racer Bart Tobener loaned them a looser torque converter to help solve that problem. The converter was swapped between qualifying rounds two and three, but when Clements went up for Q3, the rear end locked up in the burnout box, and the engine sounded off-key.

While being towed back to her pit following the rear end locking up, the car came off the dollys they were using, causing the rear bumper cover to be ripped off in the process. Brent Weston and Adam Arndt were able to reattach the bumper cover before eliminations.

“We got back to the trailer and after a compression test, all cylinders had plenty of compression,” Clements said. Turns out the engine was only running on four cylinders. The guys from Dez Racing happened to be at the event and they noticed a loose wire for the crank sensor. Dez Racing’s Evan Dumas soldered the loose wire back in the place, and the engine was back hitting on all eight.

Speaking of hitting on all eight, Derek Craft also spent the weekend helping Clements learn her car’s Holley Dominator EFI system so she can have more control over the car’s tune-up. “I am understanding it a lot more now,” Clements says, “And hope to be able to tune my car real soon.”

Since the car was mechanically sound, Clements prepped herself for Sunday’s eliminations. Unfortunately, once again she had her brother Alton in the other lane right off the bat for round one. Alton has consistently been in the sevens at Norwalk, and knowing she probably couldn’t match that, the crew put a tune in the car to hopefully make a solid pass in the low-eights. “However, I lost complete power in the car halfway through the pass because something came loose on the control panel,” Clements says, ending her weekend on a not-so-good note.

There are positives that came out of Clements weekend, though. “I can tell with the new gear drive the car has more power than ever, and the engine is healthy,” she says. “We haven’t come home with a healthy engine in a very long time.”