Permatex/Follow A Dream breaks into the 5.40s in Virginia!

MARSTONS MILLS, MA. – May 3, 2016 -Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream Top Alcohol Funny Car team had an outstanding outing in this past weekend’s NHRA Lucas Oil Racing Series Division 1 meet at Virginia Motorsports Park.

Driver Phil Burkart, who joined the Follow A Dream team earlier this year, was the event’s No 1 qualifier, as well as recorded low elapsed time (ET) and top speed of the meet in the second East Coast Regional race of the season.

But that’s not all: Burkhart’s efforts twice set new Follow A Dream team records for ET and speed on back-to-back days, as well.

After qualifying No. 1, Burkart laid down an outstanding winning run in the first round of eliminations on Friday with an ET 5.495 seconds at 266.37 mph, both new team records. But that was only a sign of even better things to come.

In Saturday’s second round of eliminations, Burkart was even faster on the North Dinwiddie, Virginia track, winning the round with another team record ET of 5.483 seconds and a team record speed of 266.79 mph.

“Prior to this weekend, we had never ran a 5.40-anything and this weekend we ran two of them,” team owner/crew chief Jay Blake said.

Unfortunately, in the third and final round, Burkart lost traction (6.904 seconds at 227.38 mph) and was defeated to DJ Cox Jr. (5.579 seconds at 260.51 mph).

“We were the No. 1 qualifier, ran the quickest elapsed time of the weekend, the top speed of the weekend and everything was headed our way until we smoked the tires in the final round,” Blake said.

Despite the final round defeat, Blake added, “The team’s coming together nicely. We’ve worked hard and the progress is showing on the racetrack and that’s great. It was a good weekend, a very good weekend.

“Breaking into the 5.40s is something we’ve been trying to do for a while, and it was great to get through that milestone. Anthony Terenzio is doing a great job as tuner. None of it would have been possible without the foundation that (former tuner) Tom Howell has built with this team.”

The Permatex/Follow A Dream team is now off until its next race, May 20-22, at Norwalk, Ohio. During the hiatus, Blake is looking forward to several speaking engagements in front of several hundred high school students.