ADRL INDEPENDENCE DRAGS - EVENT NOTEBOOK
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK
MOTHER NATURE WINS OUT - Persistant rain throughout the afternoon on Saturday, resulted in the ADRL’s Hardee’s Independence Drags IV in Topeka, Kan., being postponed.
Kenny Nowling, the ADRL president and CEO, made the announcement to postpone the race at 5:45 pm Central Time.
The plan is to complete the Topeka event at St. Louis. The ADRL Hardee’s Gateway Drags are Aug. 6-7 at Gateway International Raceway.
The first round of Pro Extreme Motorcycle, Extreme Pro Stock, Pro Nitrous, and Extreme 10.5 were completed before the race was postponed Saturday. In Pro Extreme, no eliminations were run.
“We encourage any and all spectators here at Heartland Park Topeka this weekend, your Independence Drags IV tickets will be valid if you want to head on up I-70 to Madison, Ill., just on the other side of St. Louis,” said Nowling. “Bring your ticket stubs or if you don’t have tickets, we’re going to let you in for free just for saying you were at the Hardee’s Independence Drags IV (at Topeka). We hope you have enjoyed the few days we spent together as much as we have, and I’m sorry we weren’t able to complete the race, but Mother Nature just did what she has done to us every Saturday this year. We will continue what we do and march on.”
The next ADRL event is July 23-24 at Houston, but the Topeka race couldn’t be finished there because the Houston schedule is already crammed.
At the season-opening ADRL race March 19-20 at Houston Raceway Park, qualifying was never completed. So at Houston July 23-24, the first Houston race will be completed followed by the new Houston race.
Nowling added next year’s ADRL event at Topeka is tentatively set for June 24-25. -
RACERS, ADRL REACT TO TOPEKA TRACK CONDITIONS - All the venues on the American Drag Racing League schedule offer up different track conditions.
Some obviously are better than others.
After Friday’s three rounds of qualifying at the ADRL’s Hardee’s Independence Drags IV in Topeka, Kan., Shannon Jenkins was less than pleased with the conditions at Heartland Park.
Jenkins came into Saturday’s last round of qualifying second on the Pro Nitrous ladder at 3.921 seconds, 191.73 mph.
“This track doesn’t have a weekly program and what they should be doing and they are not doing, is that they need to be out there in the middle of race track every opportunity they got for some spray down and drag it,” Jenkins said. “They need to build a rubber substance. You can see the dry areas from the starting line and that’s a problem. They want to put on a good show for the crowd and of course we do as well. One of our benefits is that we want to run as good as we can run for the fans and everybody, but when you’re on a surface like this, that’s hard to do. I think if they would spend a little more time out on the race track, it would make a better race for everybody and make a better race for the fans.”
Jenkins wasn’t blaming the ADRL for Heartland Park’s surface, but he did offer some suggestions for the sanctioning body to improve the situation.
“I know the ADRL doesn’t have its own equipment, so they rely on the tracks,” Jenkins said. “Well, what Kenny (Nowling) should be doing or whomever is heading up that part of the ADRL should say (is) guys we have a break, let’s go out here and we will spray from the 80-foot marker down to the eighth-mile. Then keep dragging the track and keep working at the race track and keep working at the race track, and it will get better. There’s no rubber (out there). They have no weekly program (at Heartland Park), so what happened, the rubber that was out there from NHRA is all dried and hard. So, now they have to keep working the new rubber in. It makes for a better show and maybe you would not see all these wrecks and all these stupid things happen.”
The 22nd annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals were held May 21-23 at Heartland Park.
Frankie Taylor, who held the provisional pole Friday in Pro Extreme at 3.701 seconds at 202.58 mph, concurred with Jenkins about the plight of the track.
“Track conditions were below desirable,” said Taylor, who ended up second in the Pro Extreme qualifying. “It wasn’t bad. I’ve raced on some bad tracks in an Outlaw car before. It still held a 70, so there still has to be some track there, so it can’t be all bad, but the track is weak and is not the best track we have ever raced on.”
On Friday, several racers had handling problems and there were some wrecks, but fortunately no one was hurt.
Bubba Stanton has his throttle stick on his Pro Extreme 1968 Camaro and past the finish line he hit the left wall and went upside down.
Fellow Pro Extreme driver Jason Hamstra also crashed his 1969 Camaro. Hamstra’s Camaro shook the tires at 200 feet and bent the Four-link bar. Hamstra’s car went right and then jerked back through the left lane and hit the wall.
Saturday, the accidents continued as Billy Glidden crashed his 2010 Ford Mustang in his fourth qualifying pass in the Extreme 10.5 class.
Glidden, the son of legendary NHRA Pro Stock racer Bob Glidden, was in the left lane for his run. When his car took off, it drifted slightly to the left and then jerked to the right, and cut right in front of Dan Saitz, who was making a pass in the right lane. Glidden then crashed into the right retaining wall and his car rolled on to its roof. Glidden was uninjured and he believed the wreck was the result of something that went wrong with his left rear driver’s side tire.
Kenny Nowling, who is the president and CEO of the ADRL, addressed the issues about Heartland Park’s surface Saturday morning, shortly before the final round of qualifying.
“The track was prepped as good as any race track,” Nowling said. “Marc Wesler, our head of track prep, is as good as there is in the business. He works full-time at Virginia Motorsports Park. The reason that I hired him was I wanted our tracks to always have the same consistency. I wanted them to be prepped the same way. I’m not going to debate with drivers on what is good or what is bad, but I can tell you this, I do not know many series that spray wall-to-wall, and we do. In other words, we spray from one guard wall to the other, and that means the center line as well because you can see a lot of our cars end up there. We spray all the way to the scoreboards. Now, we’re only an eighth-mile sanctioning body, and in truth spraying to the finish line would be adequate by most people’s standards, but not by our standards. We spray wall-to-wall all the way to the scoreboard. Two of the crashes (Friday) were parts failures. Jason Hamstra broke a rear-end component, and Bubba Stanton’s throttle hung open. I have not had a chance to speak with Aaron Wells (Pro Extreme), so I do not know what caused him to drift.”
Nowling also realizes drivers’ opinions about Heartland Park are going to vary for different reasons.
“You can poll all 100 hundred of these drivers and you’re going to get 100 different answers,” Nowling said. “What percentage of those drivers say it is good and say it is bad under most circumstances is going to be based on their performance. I can tell you this and this is the only thing I will say to that end, if you do not feel the racing surface is prepped adequately, you probably should not go down it. That’s not being crass, that’s just being matter-of-fact. I certainly would not go down it. But, I take the safety of these drivers and riders more seriously than anyone you will ever meet, which is why I get so defensive sometimes when questions are asked. But, if you do not feel that a racing surface is safe, you should never come to the staging lanes, let alone actually go down the race track. That is their choice. From our end, I think Marc Wesler is the best in the business and that’s exactly why I hired him.”
GLIDDEN CRASHES; NEAR FUTURE RACING IN QUESTION - Veteran Billy Glidden had a tough Saturday morning in the fourth and final round of qualifying of the Extreme 10.5 class at Heartland Park.
Glidden, the son of legendary NHRA Pro Stock racer Bob Glidden, was in the left lane for his run. When his 2010 Ford Mustang took off, it drifted slightly to the left and then jerked back to the right, where it cut right in front of Dan Saitz, who was making a pass in the right lane. Saitz was able to maneuver around the back of Glidden's Ford.
Glidden, however, was still in trouble.
He crashed into the right retaining wall which sent his Mustang rolling onto its roof.
Glidden was uninjured in the wreck and believes the wreck was the result of something that went wrong with his left rear driver’s side tire. By all appearances the axle broke.
“The first part (of the run) was fairly normal,” Glidden said. “It bogged just a little and then it took off toward the middle to the end of low gear. This thing will always shake the tires a little, but it just blew it off. It just shows you how fast you can go because that was low gear. The car was just sliding. You’re just along for the ride and hope you don’t hit anything too hard. I was concerned about him (Saitz) over there (in the other lane).”
Glidden was unhurt, but the same could not be said for his car.
“I would say we’re done,” Glidden said. “We’re in the same boat as a lot of the other people. The bike count is short here and some of the car counts are down. We’re like a lot of those folks, this is a setback that we’re not going to easily recover from. We do not have the funding to make up for this. Jerry Haas was up there and either way, however it goes, he would like to have the car. So we’re going to get it stripped so we can get Jerry the car, and we are going to go home and evaluate things from there.”
EARLY EXIT FOR PAPPAS - Spiro Pappas’ struggles this season continued on Saturday afternoon in the ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan.
Pappas, the reigning Extreme 10.5 class champion, qualified third, but was then upset in the first round by No. 14 qualifier David Janes on a holeshot.
Pappas ran a quicker 4.563-second time at 187.21 mph, than Janes, who came across the stripe in 4.798 seconds at 148.23 mph. The difference was at the starting line. Janes had a .075 reaction time, which easily eclipsed Pappas' .238.
“It was a driver issue,” Pappas said. “I didn’t put enough heat in the engine and I couldn’t spool it up. It was a bad driver error, but I can’t fire myself. We’re back and we’ve found our problems. We’re gradually stepping up on it to be back where we were, but unfortunately, (Saturday) was just a bad decision on my part in driving. You live and learn. This was still a good outcome for us because we did figure out our problems and we will be ready for Houston (July 23-24). That’s a double race over there, so we have something to look forward to.”
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK -
TAYLOR SOARS TO TOP OF PRO EXTREME LADDER - Frankie Taylor saved his best run of the day for last under the cooling temperatures of Friday night.
Taylor roared his way to a 3.701-second time at 202.58 mph to vault to the top of the Pro Extreme qualifying ladder.
“That was a pretty good run,” Taylor said. “We were shooting for a 68, but a 70 wasn’t too bad. “The track conditions out there were a little iffy, so to run that elapsed time on that track was pretty stout. We actually tried to get after it pretty hard in the second round and it didn’t hold it, so we just backed it down on the starting line, and she went down the track.”
Taylor’s run knocked Joshua Hernandez off the provisional pole. Hernandez ran a 3.733-second time at 201.34 mph in the second round of qualifying.
“If we can go 70 to 73 every lap (Saturday), and if we get beat we get beat and if we do not, maybe we can win this thing,” Taylor said.
CASTELLANA BRINGS PRO NITROUS POWER - All day Friday at the ADRL Independence Drags in Topeka, Ks., Mike Castellana’s 1969 Camaro was good, very good.
So, it came as no surprise when Castellana’s Al-Anabi Racing entry was the top qualifier in the Pro Nitrous class. Castellana clocked a 3.898-second run at 192.28 mph. Castellana’s teammate, Shannon Jenkins, was second in qualifying at 3.921-seconds at 191.173 mph.
“I feel pretty good about being No. 1 because (Saturday’s) conditions will not be as good, so we should be able to stay in the No. 1 spot,” Castellana said. “Consistency (Saturday) is the key. We need to make sure we get down the track with every pass. When you have got something running good, you try not to make too many changes.”
On Castellana’s first run, he posted a 3.96-second time, which set the tone for the day.
“Our first qualifying run we were No. 1 and that enabled us to try a couple of things we wouldn’t normally try if we were not qualified. Those things worked out pretty good for us and helped us step it up. Getting in good on the first shot really helps you out.”
BERNER TOPS EXTREME PRO STOCK - Pete Berner had no equal Friday in the Extreme Pro Stock class through three rounds of qualifying.
Berner, who is from Crete, Ill., clocked a 4.148-second time at 173.54 mph to grab the provisional pole. The last round of qualifying is Sunday at 11 am and first-round eliminations are scheduled to start at 3 pm.
“I’m tickled to death,” Berner said of his run and position. “It was great. We had three great (runs) and hopefully we can keep this going. We have yet to win an ADRL race, and I’m looking forward to that trophy. This motor is one of four we have in the rotation and this is what we call our R&D motor because we have our engine program. Some of the parts we had in there were fatiguing in the valve train and we were able to figure out what needed to be done and the car is making good runs.”
Track temperatures were as high as 135 degrees on Friday, but Berner believes that worked to his team’s advantage.
“When the air is really good a lot of cars can go fast, but we typically go fast when the air is not that good and the track conditions are a little tricky,” Berner said. “Any of these cars we run with are capable of qualifying on the pole, but it is the consistency that is going to win the race. You have to leave on time and shift on time and you have to be on your game on every run.”
MOYER ANSWERS THE CALL - Moments before Todd Moyer came to the starting line for his third qualifying run Friday, he knew what he had to do in the Extreme 10.5 class.
Moyer, who pilots a 2004 Chevy Cavalier, had just watched Gary White jump from last to first in qualifying with a 4.016-second pass at 184.37 mph.
Moyer responded with a stout 4.002-second effort at 195.85 mph.
“We put more stuff in the car,” Moyer said. “My crew guys came over to the box on the boost controller and dialed more in. We were either going to smoke the tires or go real fast. We knew we had to pick up five hundredths and picking up five hundredths in this class is hard and my guys did it. I knew that was a good run.”
Despite his standout performance Friday, Moyer isn’t taking anything for granted Saturday.
“Every run we need to go 4.00 to 4.05,” Moyer said. “Then in the final depending on who you are racing, you’re probably going to need a 3.97 to 3.98. All these competitors are tough and I can’t wait for (Saturday).”
The Decatur, Ala., resident has won all three completed ADRL Pro Extreme Motorcycle events in Valdosta, Ga., Richmond, Va., and Martin, Mich. And, she appears to be getting quicker and quicker..
On Friday at Heartland Park, Owens took the provisional pole with a 4.161 second pass at 173.23 mph.
“It’s kind of the pattern we’ve developed and we’ve stuck with it,” Owens said. “We’re making passes and it is less wear and tear on the bike. I feel good about (Saturday). We’re real happy with the bike. It has been real consistent. We’ve been putting good passes together and making sure everything is checked.”
Charlie Prophit was second in qualifying at 4.251 seconds at 167.18 mph. Owens came into Topeka with an 857-point lead in the point chase over second-place Terry Schweigert.
He reached his goal last year by taking home the coveted Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 world championship in his Jerry Bickel-built 2009 Pontiac GXP.
This season, Pappas has had his share of struggles, through four American Drag Racing League events he is third in the Extreme 10.5 point standings.
Pappas, however, is upbeat his fortunes will change Friday and Saturday at the ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan.
“I’m really looking forward to being here after all the problems we’ve had the last few races, we need a good comeback,” said Pappas, who lost to points leader Gary White in the semifinals at the last ADRL event in Martin, Mich.
In his first qualifying attempt, Pappas lost traction right off the starting line at Topeka, but did rebound in his second qualifying run with a 4.14-second run at 184.72 mph.
Pappas says his combination in 2010 isn’t much different than a year ago, however things obviously haven’t gone according to plan.
“The car is pretty much the same as it was last yar,” Pappas said. “We’ve just been having a few little weird problems. Our problems we had the last two races are unheard of, but believe it or not, it is the battery in the car. Although the voltage was good and it was able to crank the car, somehow the amps would run out and it would lose the tune-up in the car as your running down the track, and we’ve had nothing but problems and we finally figured that out.”
Pappas admitted tracing his car’s recent power woes wasn’t easy.
“Unfortunately, the computer data you get back from a race tells you the volts, but it doesn’t tell you the amps,” Pappas said. “Had we had known the amps were dropping tremendously as we were going down the track, we would have done something about it. We didn’t know about it because the car was starting and running. Finally, when we couldn’t start the car one time because the voltage was so low, and we added another battery to get it going. As soon as we added the second battery, the car idled probably 800 rpms higher, so we then realized we had a problem with the battery.”
Just when Pappas and his crew figured out the battery issue at Martin, Michigan, another gremlin bit his team.
“We were on a good run and one of the clips came out of the injector and we burned a piston,” Pappas said. “We came back around and took the piston out and it was also more powerful now because of the spark and the injector running correctly. We came back and put another piston in it and when we put the car back together we obviously didn’t clean it good enough. There was debris in the crank and it stuck a bearing and threw a rod. I’m confident in my team that we’ve found our problems. That’s the good thing. I’m finally glad that we are out here (at Topeka) and can concentrate on the conditions of the track and see what we can do.”
Despite his sub-par season so far, Pappas welcomes the challenge to perform.
“I need pressure to function, I thrive on it,” Pappas said. “It motivates me and keeps me going.”
DAVID JAYNES SIGHTING - The last time David Jaynes was competing at an ADRL event was at the World Finals in Ennis, Texas in October of 2008.
That was until Friday.
Janes was back driving in the Extreme 10.5 class in a Dodge Avenger at the ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan.
“I took off last year to help Shannon Jenkins,” said Janes, who last won an ADRL event at Norwalk, Ohio, in 2008. “He was running a car of mine, and I just dedicated myself to going to races with him. I’m running a customer’s car (this weekend). The customer has not licensed yet, and the car is ready to go and we need some test time anyway. It is close to home and I got to come out here and see all my old buddies and race out here on a good racing surface and see what we can do.”
Janes’ best run Friday was a 4.76-second elapsed time at 151.51 mph. That placed him 14th on the qualifying ladder.
Janes, who resides in Kirksville, Mo., and operates the David Janes Race Cars company, say this car was built for Gordon Muir. Muir is the co-founder of AlphaTrade.
“I’m just trying to get the car set up for him, so when he gets in it he will not have to worry about the new car blues,” Janes said. “He will not have to worry about sorting the power out and the clutch out. We will try to have the car dialed in for him when he takes over. We hope for him to make his debut at St. Louis (Aug. 6-7).”
Actually, Janes is also making plans to compete in the ADRL in 2011.
“We’re trying to put a Pro Nitrous deal together for next year,” Janes said. “I’ve started on a new ’69 Camaro for myself and I would like to have some Reher-Morrison power under the hood for next year. I’m working with Gordon (Muir) to put a second car together and have a two-car team next year. He can run 10.5 and I can run Pro Nitrous. We hope to have my car (the ’69 Camaro) together and be ready to test by Jan. 1, 2011.”
SCARY RIDE - During the third round of qualifying for Pro Extreme Motorcycle, Lance Hines had his hands full.
Hines made a 4.372-second pass at 165.44 mph, but right after the eighth-mile mark his 2009 Suzuki got real loose and brushed the left retaining wall.
The source of Hines’ handling problems was a flat front tire. Hines walked away from the incident with no injuries. He’s presently No. 7 in the qualifying ladder with that last pass.
CRASHES OPEN THE DAY - Racing by nature, is inherently dangerous.
Bubba Stanton experienced the danger firsthand Friday during the first round of Pro Extreme qualifying at the American Drag Racing League’s Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan.
“That run felt good and when I went through the (finish line) the throttle was stuck, so I reached and killed the fuel on it (the car) to get the throttle from being stuck,” Stanton said. “When the motor leaned out with no fuel it blew the blower off it. I was already jamming the brakes to try and get the car to slow down and I reached and pulled the chutes as it made a hard left hand turn. That’s when it (the car) hit the (left) wall and went upside down. He (Snyder) was far enough behind me that he got stopped before he got to my mess. I’m good, maybe a little sore. All the safety stuff did its job, that’s the good thing.”
The car actually slid on its roof for a few seconds before coming to stop, but Stanton wasn’t out of harm’s way at that point.
“I was hung in the car and I couldn’t get out,” Stanton said. “There was a fire in the car and I kind of panicked because I couldn’t do anything and I saw the fire by the blower. They (the safety crew) got there quick and put the fire out and that was good. I was thinking, ‘please somebody come here and put this out!’ They were able to get me out of the car when it was still upside down.”
Snyder was a little taken back by everything that unfolded.
Snyder was a little taken back by everything that unfolded.
“I saw something out of the corner of my eye and the next thing I saw was his car upside down running into the wall,” Snyder said. “I could see him and I just kept driving around all his stuff. I didn’t realize it was that bad until I got of the car. I drove around it all. I got lucky. As I was running up there (to his car), everybody else was getting up there as well. He was upside down and kind of trapped and I guess his helmet was kind of restricting his breathing. The car was on fire and they put the fire out and got him out.”
Stanton said the accident will sideline him for the weekend. Stanton’s 3.84-second time was good for third in qualifying after the first session and Snyder’s was second fastest of the day.
“Garret (Livingston) seems to think the chassis is not messed up that bad on the car, and he seems to think he can fix it,” said Stanton about Livingston who build the car. “I should be able to race in Houston (July 23-24), but it will have to be in my Corvette.”
HAMSTRA’S BAD LUCK CONTINUES - Just a few runs after Bubba Stanton wrecked his '68 Camara, Jason Hamstra veered towards the center, hooked right slamming into the right wall and then slammed into the wall on the left side before coming back to the right side wall one more time. Despite the violent collision, Hamstra got out of the car under his own power and appears to have avoided serious harm.
Hamstra probably is wondering if a black cat is sitting in his cockpit next to him.During the last two ADRL events, at Martin, Mich., and Topeka, Kan., he has had a string of seriously bad luck.
“It went out there about 200 feet and shook the tires and I let off,” the 23-year-old Hamstra said of his most recent crash. “The rear end just kind of hopped up and it just turned itself. It bent the Four-link bar under (the car). I was in the right lane and I went right first and then went left and I had it turned all the way to the left before the first time it hit the wall. When the big tires turn underneath the car you’re not going to be able to do anything. It was pretty scary, I couldn’t figure out why it was doing that. Once the Four-link bar bent when it shook, it let the rear-end turn the car.”
Fortunately for Hamstra, he escaped without any serious injuries.
“I’m sore, but I’m all right,” Hamstra said. “My right knee hurts the most, it must have hit something in the car, I guess, probably a steering shaft or something. It’s going to swell up I’m sure real bad. I also have a headache, but I will be all right, just sore. I didn’t get knocked out.”
Hamstra’s latest accident came on the heels of him blowing the front end off his car during a semifinal run at Martin, Mich., June 11-12. Hamstra’s team worked frantically just to get the car ready to compete at Topeka.
“We just can’t seem to catch a break anymore,” Hamstra said. “It’s pretty rough. I know we’re done for the weekend. It (the car) is definitely not fixable. I hope we can race at Houston (July 23-24), but I don’t think we can get the car fixed that quick.”
A year ago at the ADRL World Finals in Ennis, Texas, Hamstra also had a brutal accident in the 1968 Camaro he was driving at the time.
“That wreck was worse, but I do not remember it,” Hamstra said. “It did about the same thing this wreck did. We also found some suspension pieces broke underneath (after)that wreck. That time it knocked me out.”
HAMSTRA'S CRASH SEQUENCE BY ROGER RICHARDS
AN EMOTIONAL FAVORITE - Blake Housley and crew will surely be among the emotional favorites this weekend (July 2-3), at Heartland Park Topeka as they return to ADRL Pro 
Nitrous action from a two-month layoff following the death of team co-owner Mike Walker.
In a freak pit-side accident, Walker was struck and killed by an errant nitrous bottle during the ADRL event in April at South Georgia Motorsports Park, near Valdosta.
“We sat down as a family and talked it over and said we wouldn’t come back until we had regained confidence,” said Housley, who dates Walker’s daughter, Sara, and continues to own the team with her stepmother, Melanie.
“It’s still going to be tough, we know that. Mel and Sara are obviously still dealing with things and I was so used to having Mike up there and everything he did and it’s just so much different now.”
Like the true racers they are, however, Housley and the Walkers made good use of their down time to lighten up their ’41 Willys and get it tweaked and tuned by chassis man Tommy Mauney and engine builder Gene Fulton.
“I can’t say enough about those guys; they helped out tremendously,” Housley said. His father, Terry, a two-time ADRL event winner and driver of the Ballance Racing ’53 Corvette Pro Nitrous entry, also will be assisting in the car’s trackside preparation, as will Delon Joseph, a longtime nitrous racer from the Kansas City area.
“Earlier in the year, even before the accident in Valdosta, we were coming to the races unprepared,” Housley said. “But now, we’ve done some testing, been to the track three times, got rained out twice, but we finally got to make a couple of runs last Saturday (June 26), where we saw some good incremental times. We’re very excited.”
Among those times on a 145-plus degrees track at Kansas City International Raceway were back-to-back 2.69 and 2.70 passes to the 330-foot marker “on only one, small nitrous system,” said Housley, even though he kept the eighth-mile times to himself.
“We proved we can get down a hot race track, so some heat in Topeka wouldn’t bother us. We made four runs and the car didn’t shake, so we think we’re in pretty good shape right now.”
He also said the team worked on getting a new routine established.
“That was really the main thing, finding a new normal for in-between-rounds maintenance and knowing who was going to do which jobs now,” he explained. “Mike, he was the one that lined me up and made sure that we armed everything and kind of helped me remember everything before a run and actually, Mel has taken that job over now.
“She had never done that before, but she did a great job at it during testing, getting me lined up straight. She’s taken over a whole lot, she really has, and I gave her the option of what she wanted to do and she’s taken on more than enough. I just can’t say enough about her.”
Housley admitted to a little trepidation in his teammates when making the necessary adjustments to and moving about the nitrous-oxide bottles that turned so deadly against them in Georgia, but he’s fabricated a containment device for the bottles while in their heater, “so something like that can never happen to us again.”
In fact, he invites all nitrous racers to visit his pit at Topeka or any other race to check out the device. “I just want everyone to be safe and anything I can do to help that happen is worth it.”
For now, though, Housley’s sight is firmly focused on doing well and helping his entire team regain their stride.
“We’ve got everything we need to do it; we’ve just got to put it all together to get it done,” he stated. “We’re as prepared as we can be this time. Everything is coming together and I’ve got some confidence for once about what’s going to happen. I feel like we’re at least going to go down the race track and give ourselves a shot.”
There could be no more fitting tribute to Mike Walker’s memory. - Ian Tocher, Photos by Ian Tocher
ANOTHER ICEMAN WAITING IN THE WINGS - With Pro Nitrous star Shannon Jenkins known as “The Iceman,” does that make his son, Heath, an “Ice Chip” off the old block?
That may not be the nickname the 25-year-old is looking for, but there’s no question Heath Jenkins wants to replicate his father’s on-track success. There’s only one major obstacle - his father.
“He’s definitely ready,” the former IHRA and NHRA Pro Mod world champion and multi-time ADRL race winner says of Heath’s aspirations. “I’m just not ready to stop driving yet.”
A go-cart racer in his early teens, the younger Jenkins has been working on his dad’s race cars since he was 16 and joined the team full-time upon graduating from high school seven years ago. He now does most of the race engine work between races on the cars of his father and Al-Anabi Racing teammates Mike Castellana and Burton Auxier back at their shop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and handles the track-side clutch work on the Iceman’s ’68 Camaro.
While he enjoys the mechanical challenge of prepping a car to make three-second laps at nearly 200 mph, the younger Jenkins admits it’s really just the means to an end for him.
“I enjoy that rush. You know, you’ve got 45 minutes between rounds and you’ve got to do the motor, do the clutch, but the main thing is, all I want to do is go down that race track,” he says. “But you’ve got to start from the bottom and work your way up; you don’t want to start from the top and work your way down.”
That hard-work ethic was instilled directly by the actions of his father.
“My old man is the hardest-working guy I’ve ever seen; I mean, he’s a workaholic,” Jenkins says. “And that’s the way he’s taught me, that you have to work for everything you get, so that’s all we do, is work on race cars.”
He’s managed to fit a few eighth-mile passes in, too.
“I’ve got my Quick Rod license and overseas I’ve probably made 300 passes in the Sheikh’s (Khalid Al-Thani) dragsters. I’ve been 4.40s I don’t know how many times,” he says.
Regardless, Jenkins recognizes nothing but seat time in a Pro Mod can prepare him for the intimidating nature of an overpowered, short wheelbased doorslammer. “I’ve probably done 50 burnouts in my dad’s and Burton’s cars, scuffing tires. Whenever we go testing and need to scuff tires I hop in there just to get the feel of it.”
So he’s getting closer all the time to making that first pull under power in a Pro Mod ride, but with his dad still winning and loving what he does behind the steering wheel, Jenkins realizes he may eventually have to look elsewhere for his first opportunity as a driver. He says he’s open to driving for someone else or even making his start in a lower class, if that’s what it takes, but stresses, “all I know is Pro Mod racing and that’s really what I want to do.
“I would rather race Pro Mod, but like I said, if someone came along with a good deal on something else, who knows? I’d have to consider that if it happened, but my goal is to race Pro Mod like my Pops.”
While Jenkins’ father obviously has been most influential in shaping his son's racing ambitions, the younger Jenkins also cites Al-Anabi teammates Auxier and Castellana among those racers he most admires.
“I’ve been watching them both since I was just a kid,” Jenkins recalls. “Burton, to me, he’s an old-school drag racer and I just like how he does stuff. He’s a good ole’ country boy who didn’t have a whole lot of money and sponsorship when he started, but he just got out there and did it and ran good.
“And Mike, he may have had some money on his side, but before he hooked up with my old man he was tearing stuff up and burning motors up, but he stuck with it and became a great driver. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.”
And Heath Jenkins has his start; now it’s just a matter of waiting to see where it takes him. - Ian Tocher
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