Matt Lennen- 1320 Racing

Editor note:  Racing isn’t always good news.  I have serious respect for folks who not only send us their reports when they are winning, but also when things aren’t so good. 

Since the last email there have been some interesting developments.  We made the 1000 mile trip down to Palm Beach, FL again for the NSCRA round 4 race on October 23rd.  Started out strong qualifying #1 right off the trailer with a 9.06@153mph.  The day was downhill from there however, as the track prep was just not up to par.  The next pass we ran was the first round of eliminations, maintained our position as the fastest in the class with a 9.18@145mph, had to lift at the 1000ft due to the poor track conditions.  There were quite a few cars into the wall, one Extreme class car actually rolled at the 1000ft, and we had a scare ourselves on the last pass.

The second round of eliminations the car left the line hard, but right past the 60ft the tires hit ice, the track was slick and tires lost traction; immediately throwing off smoke as they spun up to 150mph in the blink of an eye.  The back end swung out and I had to let out to recover, by the time I realized nothing had broken, it was too late and we were out.

We were sure to put on a good show while we were running, the car has become very recognizable.  We got some good media coverage from Nyce1’s and GRS, waiting for videos to be posted from them.  The stands were packed at this event, and I believe it was one of the best spectator turnouts we have seen so far this year.  Our video can be seen at www.facebook.com/1320motorsports.  These pictures have gone somewhat viral due to the extent of the damage.  We literally snapped the block in half at the #4 cylinder.  The cause for this appears to be a drivetrain malfunction.

With the MIR World Cup Finals race coming next weekend we have been busy here.  We are trying to get a motor back in the car, we are only being held up by one part at the moment.  If we can get that part, we will be good to go.  We picked a bad weekend to pop the motor, quite a few of you are out at SEMA this week, luckily we have been able to get ahold of almost everyone we needed to.

Jim Justice has been working hard to get the motor/head ready to go.  Brian Crower has been kind enough to send us out a fresh set of rods, Wiseco has supplied a fresh set of rings, Mark @ Real Street Performance has come onboard and supplied us with a set of bearings, Ferrea has sent us some new replacement valves, and Boost Logic is helping us repair the damage to the transmission.  We’ve also got some OEM parts coming from Curt @ Elmhurst Toyota.

An in-car video of the pass where the motor let go is already up at photobucket.com/1320ms-October2011/