“That was one hell of an afternoon,” Matt Guidera admitted as he celebrated his first win of the season, his career fourth.

The weekend didn't start out quite so sweet. After the first two rounds of qualifying Guidera was 14th fastest; not quick enough for one of the top 12 locked in spots. The team went to work on the motor Friday night but rain into trouble.

“We had trouble with pulling the valve springs on Friday night. We actually couldn't get the valve springs out of the motor. We were sitting there beating on the valve springs trying to get them out and they just wouldn't budge. So, we ended up having to change motors just so we could get fresh valve springs in the bike so we would have a chance to go fast Saturday.”

“That was one hell of an afternoon,” Matt Guidera admitted as he celebrated his first win of the season, his career fourth.

The weekend didn't start out quite so sweet. After the first two rounds of qualifying Guidera was 14th fastest; not quick enough for one of the top 12 locked in spots. The team went to work on the motor Friday night but rain into trouble.

“We had trouble with pulling the valve springs on Friday night. We actually couldn't get the valve springs out of the motor. We were sitting there beating on the valve springs trying to get them out and they just wouldn't budge. So, we ended up having to change motors just so we could get fresh valve springs in the bike so we would have a chance to go fast Saturday.”

The team worked until 1:30 early Saturday morning before heading to back to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep.

“We were so bad on Friday, we had to make some drastic changes on the motorcycle to get it to wake up.”

Whatever the team did, it worked. Guidera was third quickest in the third round and fourth quick in the final round of qualifying. The extra speed moved them from 14th in the order to 10th. Next on the list was getting fast enough to compete with those ahead of him.

“This morning I came to the track with tons of ideas to make the bike faster, but the question was 'do you do something?' I couldn't leave well enough alone so I went in and made some changes and that thing went out there and ran like a ape.”

Guidera did such a good job with his bike, after his second round win NHRA tech inspectors paid the team a visit.

“I rode the wheels off of that thing in the second round and I knew I had a fast bike. Then all of a sudden thee tech guys show up. I just had to talk them out of the trailer so I could keep my mind focused.” 

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