We have been off from racing since the IHRA event @ US 131. I was in Wichita, KS last weekend for a Lokar Car Show shoot… (Great event) and Kevin did some testing with a friend’s dragster at a local track.
The plan was for us to attend the IHRA NJ event in Epping next weekend, but we have changed to another venue the following week. Our next event will be the NHRA National at zMax 9/15-9/19. Since they do not contest TD during the event, Kevin is borrowing a dragster to compete in Super Comp.
This will be the first time that we will both be in the same class since the end of the 2007 season. It’s going to be a lot of fun…. J In all our years when we ran the same class, wonder if this may be the event where we finally get to race each other (with all hopes for a later round, of course).
Think that is a good idea just days before our 10 year anniversary? Well….I guess that would depend on the outcome, huh? JJ
I just received my new wing side plates that were made (still need to be painted), replacement numbers/class letters (both I & N, I use a different set for each) and the new rear wing struts back from being chromed. Unfortunately, my K&N scoop will have to be completely repainted and cannot be just “fixed”. It’s all done in DuPont Hot Hues Raspberry Pop…with ghost flames and large rainbow metal flake….too much to patch and have it look right. L So I’ll have that taken care of over the winter along with the few remaining items.
John Robinson Updates on the Diesel Dragster Season
We had an awesome weekend & the car is back on track, the new converter was the ticket……It was an 1/8 mile track & it ran a 5.51 first pass. 5.48 the second pass & a 6.60 in the final against the Scheid rail, neither one of us had our turbos spooled when the light went green & we both left the line soft. Our chargers lit at the 100` mark & my competitor went sideways when his chargers lit. That puts this team at 6 & 2 vs the quickest diesel in the world & also makes it the winningest diesel in the Pro dragster class. It was not a pretty win but sometimes the guy that screws up the least comes out on top….LOL. This event had 15,000 tickets sold & many more just hanging in the parking lot, the exposure was very good & It is has been the largest diesel event we have attended to date.
As we were driving to the event we did a re cap of the events , miles traveled & people we have talked to. So far we gave been to 11 races & 18,000 miles added to our odometer on the freightliner. There is no good way to tell how many people we have been in contact with but it’s got to be a lot. There are 2 more events on the schedule, The ORiley Fall Nationals in Ennis which is on Sept 24,25,26 & the Big Rig show in Charlotte NC. on Oct 8 & 9.
Ross Hoek Motorsports
Hoek Takes another Podium in Round 10 in Chicagoland
Fights for 4th place in Round 9
Holland, MI (August 30, 2010) – The Ross Hoek Motorsports #21 Allstar Performance, Venom Energy, Royal Purple, BFGoodrich, Ford Ranger had its best performance of the 2010 season in the Traxxas TORC Series from Chicagoland. The orange Ford nearly pulled off back to back PRO-Light podium finishes in the inaugural TORC event at Route 66 Raceway and provided the best racing action of the PRO-Light division.
The first of its kind mid-week, two evening TORC event at Chicagoland Speedway brought out the largest PRO-Light field of the year to race on TORC’s best purpose-built stadium style track of the year. The.8 mile layout included fast sections with six high flying jumps, but it also included a tricky camelback jump, a high and long flying tabletop, a mogul section and a rhythm section. The layout appeared to be a Supercross track for four wheeled vehicles. The course received high praise from most every driver.
Wednesday Evening – Round 9
A solid qualifying run had Ross and his #21 Allstar Performance Ford Ranger starting third thanks to a solid qualifying lap. It took two attempts before the class could get a clean first lap, due to two separate rollovers. Fortunately Ross avoided all the mayhem, but fell back a couple spots in the process. Undaunted, Ross quickly moved back into third place by the fifth lap. The top three racers solidly held their positions to the halfway point of the sixteen lap event.
When the field went back to green flag racing after the midway mandatory yellow, Ross began to feel pressure from #29 Rayford. The two battled back and forth, fender to fender. With three laps to go, Rayford made an inside pass to take the position. Then on the final lap Ross used all the Ford power he had through his ATD transmission into his BFGoodrich tires and made a bold move through the rhythm section. At one point, the #21 Ford regained the spot, but there was too much speed for the Ford Ranger to hold through the final corner. At the checkered flag, Ross Hoek finished a hard fought fourth place.
“Man that was tough,” remarked Ross Hoek. “We had Rayford coming through the whoops, but he got just in front of me coming out the corner and won the drag race to the finish. The last lap showed me I can carry more speed through the infield and I’ll use that to my advantage tomorrow night.”
Thursday Evening – Round 10
The next night saw Ross quickly put the Allstar Performance Ford Ranger into second place. Ross ran consistent lap times and held off #43 Cadell through most of the event, but a late charge by the #43 put Ross in the third spot. The top three trucks gradually distanced themselves from the rest of the field when the sixteen lap feature ended. Round 10 was Ross’ third podium finish of the season.
“We really have this Allstar Performance, Venom Energy, Royal Purple, BFGoodrich, Ford Ranger running great,” noted Ross Hoek. “Now we can fine tune the setup for each track we go to. Next week is our second visit to Crandon for the year and the season finale. The championship chase is down to a two truck competition, all we can do at Crandon is win and that is our goal. My first Pro-2WD win was a Crandon World Championship, I can’t think of a better way to get my first PRO-Light win.”
Showtime Funny Car at Hockenheim
The 2010 Nitrolympics were celebrating 25 years of the event on the now re-named Rico Anthes Quartermile at the Hockenheimring Germany, one of the 2 venues that hosts the Formula 1 German Grand Prix.
Racing at Hockenheim involves a lot more planning and organisation than when we are “at home” at Santa Pod. To begin with virtually the whole contents of the workshop have to be loaded into the trailer to ensure we have every eventuality covered. Then it’s a 600Km each way trip to the track for the truck and trailer. The journey started at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning for John and Lee, who were sharing the driving, with Jo accompanying them. They arrived at the track at Wednesday evening then spent Thursday setting up the pit. We had pit box 4, which at the F1 race had been home to Mercedes F1 with Michael Schumacher.
The rest of the team, with the exception of Crew Chief Bob, flew in to Frankfurt on Thursday afternoon and headed for the track. Bob was due in Friday morning.
As we were not scheduled to run on Friday, there was a planned schedule to cover prior to warming the car up as for a final check. You can see the checklist on the “ Live Report” we did at the time. Our plan to post frequent updates on the website actually worked out quite well thanks to our good friend and webmaster, Nigel Holland.
Saturday is the focus of the event because of the legendary “ Niteshow”. We would be “match racing” against the Shockwave FC. It is a very long day for everyone involved. The running order had us down to run at 10.45 a.m, and in a change to previous years, 8.00pm to open the “Niteshow”, rather than close it. We may get a relatively early night this year!
The car was warmed up around 9 a.m, then tow down to the pairing lanes around 10.15 . Unfortunately the running order was re-scheduled so we did not get to run until just after 1pm
Tog on www.eurodragster.com described the runs as follows:
“ That was the best Fuel FC race I’ve seen in a long while, nice one guys! 0.963 to sixty for Gordon,0.970 for Spuff. Gordon had the better eighth 3.547 to 3.540,some smoke from the Showtime FC at about 1100ft and Spuff was off the throttle,but got there first”
(The above reproduced by kind permission of eurodragster.com)
5.194 secs at 445.57kph for John to Gordon’s 5.273 secs at 406.47kph
John’s run was the quickest ever by a Nitro FC at Hockenheim
Servicing was routine, although there was damage to an exhaust seat. We replaced both heads during re-build.
As we were due to open the Niteshow, being late was not an option, so everything was ready to go well ahead of time and we took our place behind the start. Janet Linke the Niteshow organiser briefed us on the timings. We should be ready to fire up before the National Anthem, whilst it was playing skydivers would descend, when the anthem finished and the skydivers landed we were to fire up the car. It all went to plan, as did the run! Even quicker than the first – 5.127 secs at 473.02kph, like an arrow, straight down the groove.
Servicing was a repeat of earlier, and the hoped for early night came our way. The crew enjoying a late evening meal at the track before heading back to the hotel.
Sunday schedule was to run at 11 am and 3 pm. We had the car warmed up and ready to go but unfortunately periods of light drizzle and oil downs meant the schedule was running approx 90 mins behind. We eventually towed down around 2pm, the FIA classes were running in between the drizzle.
The wet stuff did eventually stop by which time the shutdown area was too wet to dry before the mandatory 5pm curfew. The organisers asked John and Gordon to round off the weekend with a paired burnout.
That was Hockenheim 2010, not as much racing as we would have hoped for, but a very enjoyable weekend. Thanks to Jerry Lackey and his team at the Rico Anthes Quartermile, the German fans who turn out in their tens of thousands, Eurodragster.com for their excellent coverage and Nigel Holland for the website updates.Sunday schedule was to run at 11 am and 3 pm. We had the car warmed up and ready to go but unfortunately periods of light drizzle and oil downs meant the schedule was running approx 90 mins behind. We eventually towed down around 2pm, the FIA classes were running in between the drizzle.
Tim Allison Update
This past weekend was the last race for the points championship at Lima
Land Motorsports Park on Friday night and the traveling NRA 360 Sprint
Series also. It was a great night of racing and a great field of cars.
We drew dead last in the first heat race and that had us starting in the
10th position so we had our work cut for us. The goal was to get to
the feature and gain as many points as we can and to try and win the
feature and the championship. On the start of the heat race we got a
great start and we came from 10th to 4th in the heat race and that got
us qualified for the fetaure. No points were gained at that point. The
inversion for the feature was a 10 and that had us starting on the pole
for the feature! We took the lead and never looked back and won the
feature! We had a straightaway lead at times, but when the dust settled
we did everything we could do by winning the feature and gaining the
most points, but yet not enough. We came up just 55 points short of
winning the championship at Limaland Motorsports Park and 72 points
short of winning the NRA 360 Series. In the end we ended up 3rd in both
series. It was great to get the win plus back to back feature wins.
Now only 2 to go to hit the 100th! As we look back, if it was not for
the 2 mechanical failures over the course of the summer we had, we could
have won both the championships. In the end we all are very proud of
what we accomplished this year.
Race Report Week Ending 8/29/10
The Nationwide Series visited Canada this week. Boris Said won at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Harold Martin Racing Update
We at Harold Martin Racing are very excited and pleased to share with you a mid-year update for the 2010 race season highlighting race results with our 2010 Martin M4 Pro Mod race car.
The M4 has been running extremely well on the track and most recently winning the Pro Mod event at the Maryland International Motorsports Park, in Budds Creek, Maryland. “The dreams and history making could not be possible without our sponsors”, stated Harold Martin. “It’s always a great feeling to receive a win and I could not think of a better way to show progress. “ This year’s consistency and continuous improvement has allowed us a mid-year positioning of #2 in the point standings for the Pro Nitrous NEOPA series.
Harold Martin Racing is committed to winning both on and off the race track and would like to thank all of our sponsors for supporting our race program. Attached are a few photos from the various events during the race weekend.
On another great note the M4 race car and Harold Martin has been selected to be in a movie production called “Homerun Derby Showdown” and the filming will be taking place between August and September 2010. This is another great opportunity for the Martin M4 race car and our sponsor’s likeness to be seen and leverage.
DREAM TEAM REACHES FINAL ROUND OF COMPETITION AT CECIL COUNTY DRAGWAY
Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team reached its second consecutive final in Division 1 competition and dropped a close race with perennial Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Frank Manzo, 5.65 to 5.67. Manzo had low e.t. of all three rounds, with times of 5.67, 5.67, and 5.65, but Follow A Dream driver Todd Veney was right there with a 5.70, 5.69, and 5.67.
“We didn’t win, but it was a great weekend anyway,” Blake said. “Anytime you can be that close to Mr. Manzo, you know you’re doing something right. The team is really starting to jell, working well together, and the results are starting to show. We have a great shot at finishing second in the Division this year, and we’re gearing up for a great finish to the season.”
Veney qualified No. 3 with a 5.69 and defeated Wayne Morris in the first round, 5.70 to 5.86. In the semifinals, Tom Carter, the No. 2 qualifier and recent runner-up at the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., fell to the Follow A Dream crew, 5.69 to 6.00. No driver all weekend – even Manzo – ran better than a 5.84 in the tricky left lane until Follow A Dream tuner Tom Howell delivered a 5.67 in the final, but Manzo had just enough to win by a couple of hundredths.
“I can’t stand losing, even in the final round and even to someone like Frank, who wins all the time, but you can’t be that upset about a weekend like this,” Todd said. “At least we got to race him this time. The only other time I raced here [in 2003], we got to the final against Frank but had to let him take a single because the engine blew up in the semi’s.”
After two weekends off, the team finishes the 2010 season with four races in five weeks – two divisionals, and two nationals: Division 1 events in Englishtown (Sept. 11-12) and Atco, N.J. (Oct. 1-2), and nationals in Charlotte (Sept. 17-19) and Reading (Oct. 8-10).
Race Report Week Ending 8/22/10
Kyle Busch sweeps ’em all at Bristol!
Sprint Cup- Irwin Tools Night Race
Nationwide Series- Food City 250
Camping World Truck Series- OReilly 200
Tim Allison Update
RACING SEASON CONTINUES FOR FOLLOW A DREAM TEAM THIS WEEKEND AT CECIL COUNTY DRAGWAY
Fresh off of a win at Lebanon Valley Dragway, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Md., for the next race in the Division 1 Lucas Oil Series.
“It’s great to head to the track with a win still fresh in our minds,” driver Todd Veney said. “That weekend at Lebanon Valley was the best of my career, and I’m ready for another one just like it. Plus, I’ve got a little unfinished business at Cecil County.” In his only previous appearance at the Maryland track, in 2003, Todd reached the final against Frank Manzo was but unable to compete following an engine explosion in a semifinal win over Paul Gill.
The team currently is one point from being in the national top 10 standings and has been as high as sixth this season. In Division 1, where Manzo has won the championship a record 19 times – more than any driver in any class and in any division in drag racing history – the Follow A Dream crew currently is second in the standings behind Manzo.
In testing at New England Dragway at the start of the month, the car set both ends of the track record with a best of 5.62 at 257. In four runs, the car ran at least a 5.69 every time, and the speed on all four runs was 257.
“It was a great test session,” Jay said. “I’m feeling better than I have in a couple of years about where we’re at and where we’re headed. One thing that’s really exciting about this event is that we’ll have a group of wounded soldiers from George G. Meade as our guests for the weekend. We really appreciate what they do for our country, and we really appreciate the support we’ve gotten from both the track and NHRA in making all this happen.”
Tim Allison gets 97
This past weekend of racing was supposed to be two nights of racing for the weekend, but Mother Nature ruined it for us on Saturday night as the rain came in again. On Friday night we were at Lima Land Motor Sports Park for our big annual 360 / 305 shootout race. We had a great field of cars on hand on a beautiful night of racing and weather. We got a decent draw for our heat race and lined up 4th and finished 2nd in our heat. That got us qualified for the feature and with the inversion being a 10 that put us starting in the 3rd position for the feature. We jumped right into second on the first lap and started running down the leader and chased him down and took the lead on lap 13 and from there on it, was history and we went onto to win the feature event! This was win number 97 as we are trying to hit the 100th feature win this year, but time is running out. It was another great night and that moved us up into the 3rd position in points with one race to go. We do have a shot at winning the points, but you never know till its over they say. This weekend we will be at Waynesfield Raceway Park on Saturday night.
Race Results Week Ending 8/15/10
NASCAR
Camping World Truck Series- Darlington- Too Tough to Tame 200- Todd Bodine
Nationwide Series- Michigan International Raceway- Carfax 250- Brad Keselowski
Sprint Cup- Michigan International Raceway- Carfax 400- Kevin Harvick
NHRA
Race Report Week ending 8/8/10
Nascar
Camping World Truck Series- Nashville 200- Todd Bodine
Nationwide Series- Zippo 200@The Glen- Marcos Ambrose
Sprint Cup- Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips @ The Glen- Juan Pablo Montoya
Subaru Road Racing Team Optimistic Heading to Quebec
Team Travels to Penultimate Series Event on 2010 Schedule –
This weekend’s penultimate race in the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series, is unique because of the distinction as the only event of the season to take place in Canada, and is the only one held on public streets.
Subaru Road Racing Team’s driver pairing of Andrew Aquilante and Bret Spaude plans to be one of the top “street fighters” in Friday’s race at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, with their 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STI in the Grand Sports class.
Aquilante, of Chester Springs, Pa., and Spaude, of Bushnell, Fla., are an enthusiastic and talented pair of 22-year olds who are now looking for their fourth top-10 finish in the closing chapters of this 2010 season.
“Preparing the all-wheel drive Subaru Impreza for the Grand Sports class this year has been a technical eye-opener,” said Joe Aquilante, owner of Phoenix Performance of Phoenixville, Pa., which prepares the team’s Grand Sports class 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STI.
“Our most-recent race in New Jersey was another solid outing for us and helped put some of the earlier, challenging events further into our proverbial rear-view mirror.
“This weekend, with the superb handling of the Subaru Impreza, its all-wheel-drive capabilities to help ‘dig’ its way out of all the turns on this 1.521-mile track, and the turbocharged engine’s power to pull us down the straightaways, we should be in good shape.”
The race is round nine of 10 in the season, and will take the green flag Friday at 7pm ET.
Added James Han, motorsports marketing manager for Subaru of America, Inc., “Prior to kicking off this campaign, Joe and I conceded that the 2010 season would represent a developmental year with a new driver in Bret [Spaude] and applying the performance capabilities of the Subaru Impreza WRX STI in the GS class after a successful string of seasons in ST [class].” “The team has persevered through some challenging results, and I’m confident that we’ve made some positive headway.”
Showtime Funny Car at Nitrolympics
The Showtime Funny Car will be off on what is becoming a regular outing to the Nitrolympics at Hockenheim next week www.nitrolympx.com/ . For the fifth year running the organisers have invited us to take part in the legendary ” Saturday Nite Show” as well as running during Saturday and Sunday.
After Hockenheim, the next appearance of the Showtime FC will be at the FIA European Finals at Santa Pod September 9th – 12th.
Tim Allison 8/4/10
Lima Land motor sports park on Friday night and with a good car count again, we drew dead last in our heat race. That put us starting in the 8th position and with a very stacked heat race. We finished 5th and broke a rear end on the final lap, but that got us in the feature but not a good starting spot as we started 12th and had no time to change any set ups on the car for the feature as we swapped out our rearend. So we hung around and finished 11th overall.
Last Saturday night we were off to Waynesfield Raceway with another good car count and we drew for the front row of our heat and won that hands down and that got us qualified for the feature. The inversion for the feature put us starting in the 5th position. We got into 3rd and then into second and passed for the lead more than once and jumped the cushion and fell back to 3rd, almost got 2nd again and almost passed for the win in the the last few laps. We lapped everybody up to the 10 position, but in the end we ended up finishing 3rd in the feature.
This past weekend were back at Lima Land Motor Sports Park again on Friday night with a good car count again and again we drew dead last in a very stacked heat race. We started 8th and finished 4th, that got us qualified for the feature and after the inversion that put us starting in the 12 position. We jumped up a couple of spots early and then got up to 8th and going forward only to have a nozzle line break and that ended our night with a DNF and finishing in the 19th position and a disappointing night.
Saturday night we were going to be at Waynesfield Raceway Park, but Mother Nature won out again and we got rained out. This week we are at Lima Land Motor Sports Park only on Friday night for this week.
Race Report Week Ending 8/1/10
Nascar
Nationwide Series- Iowa Speedway- US Cellular 250 by Northland Oil and John Deere- Kyle Busch
Camping World Truck Series- Pocono Raceway- Pocono Mountains 125- Elliott Sadler
Sprint Cup Series- Pocono Raceway- Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500- Greg Biffle
Race Results Week ending 7/25/10
NASCAR
Camping World Truck Series- Indianapolis- ORP- AAA Insurance 200 by JD Byrider- Ron Hornaday
Nationwide Series- Indianapolis- ORP- Kroger 200 Benefiting Riley Hospital for Children- Kyle Busch
Sprint Cup- Indianapolis Motor Speedway- Brickyard 400- Jamie McMurray
NHRA
Subaru Road Racing Team Rises From Adversity
Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT) drivers Bret Spaude of Bushnell, Fla., and Andrew Aquilante, Chester Springs, Pa., handed Subaru its third top 10 finish of the 2010 GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series with a 10th place finish in this past weekend’s Garden State 250 race at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
To score the team’s third top-10 finish of the season, the 22-year-old phenom drivers had to start last in the 25-car Grand Sports class field.
“Bret handed us a great fourth place qualifying lap,” said Phoenix Performance Inc., team owner Joe Aquilante. “Grand-Am’s post-qualifying inspection found a technical discrepancy. We corrected it but had to grid last in our Grand Sports class.”
Spaude started the race in the red 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STI and climbed as high as seventh place in the 25-car Grand Sport field.
Passing as many as five cars in a single lap and turning laps within 1.5 seconds of the race leader, it took Spaude only 13 laps to pick up 10 positions. He was 10th by lap 24, despite having to hold station behind the pace car for eight of those 24 laps. In fact, a scant seven laps was the longest stretch of green flag racing in the first 24 laps.
The team’s first refueling/tire change stop, on lap 40, saw Spaude hand over the controls to teammate Andrew Aquilante. When the green flags again flew, Aquilante was in 19th place, but by lap 56 had charged hard to 12th , then pitted again for a gas tank refill that would get him to the end of the race, and was back to 12th place byy lap 71.
He hit the 10th spot on lap 76, only 25 seconds out of the race lead, and stayed there until the checkered flag flew on lap 87.
“Even though this is the third top 10 finish of the season for the Subaru Impreza, our mistake made AJ and Brett work too hard to get to that point,” said Joe Aquilante.
“We were happy to have such a good turnout of Subaru employees and owners over the weekend,” added James Han, Motorsports Marketing Manager for Subaru of America, Inc. They had an opportunity to witness our two team drivers do a stellar job gaining back positions with limited green flag laps, and doing so in a precise manner. None of the 23 laps run behind the safety car involved AJ or Bret. They did a very professional job picking their way through the field.”
To this point into the 10-race season, the first eight races have been held in a narrow strip of geography stretching East/West between Millville, NJ and Lexington, OH., an economical point for East Coast and Midwest-based teams.
The next two races, however, are a month apart – Aug. 13 in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec; followed by a haul to Salt Lake City, UT, haul for the Sept. 10-11 season finale.
The New Jersey race was televised on SPEED TV to air July 25 at 1pm ET.