ADRL READING - EVENT NOTEBOOK
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - RECORD SET AND RAIN SETS IN
THIRD ROUND
XPS DOWN TO TWO - Brian Gahm won again with a holeshot as his .028 reaction and 4.08 at 177.11 pass beat a 4.07 at 176.72 after Tony Gillig left with a .066 light.
Word came that Dean Goforth hurt his engine in a pit-side warm-up before the semis, but the Goforth team quickly swapped in a new mountain-sized bullet. Regardless, it was Cary who won the Battle of the Goforths with a 4.07 at 176.93 beating the 4.09 at 177.46 by his father.
So, it’ll be Gahm on for the XPS final against Cary Goforth.
IT’S ALL OVER! - Ashley Owens continued his season-long winning streak with a 4.02 run at dead on 178 mph to beat the 4.13 at 170.36 by Canada’s Terry Schweigert.
In the second semi, Eric McKinney went 4.12 at 165.94 to beat Ron Procopio’s 4.14 at 169.76 mph, setting up a Mckinney-Owens final.
And that’s it! The plug was pulled just before 11:30 with only the Pro Jr. Dragster final decided in young Eric Bardekoff’s favor over Morgan Benfield.
The race was declared complete at 11:40 p.m., with no further eliminations to be held, as per ADRL policy stated and publicly released early this year.
SECOND ROUND
4G SERVICE - The corrected altitude is about 250 feet, which is ideal for the naturally aspirated mountain-motored Extreme Pro Stock crowd. Straight out of the gate, Tony Gillig delivered a 4.06 at 177.07-mph win over Tony Pontieri that also was a team best run for Billy Dingman Racing.
The second pair was decided by a huge holeshot from Brian Gahm, who left with a .024 reaction to Pete Berner’s .095 that allowed Gahm’s 4.08 at 176.88 to douse the quicker and faster 4.05 at exactly 178 mph by Berner.
Dean Goforth’s 4.06 at 177.56 easily advanced him beyond a tire-shaking Steven Boone.
It’ll be Goforth versus Goforth in the semis after Dean’s son, Cary, ran low ET and top speed of the meet so far with a 4.05 at 178.07 to beat Elijah Morton’s game 4.07 at 176.79 pass. Gillig and Gahm will decide the other XPS semi, making it an “all-G” final four.
TWO-WHEELED THUNDER - In a Fast by Gast duel that opened the PXM quarter finals, Ashley Owens scored the upset win over team owner Paul Gast, whose bike faltered while Owens rode to a 4.07 at 176.86-mph win.
Eric McKinney’s 4.12 at 166.64 powered him past Dave Vantine and into the semi-finals and Terry Schweigert’s 4.13 at 171.69 was just too much for Rob Hunnicutt to handle.
Reigning PXM champ Kim Morrell rode to a troubled 4.45 pass at just 128.22, which was nowhere near enough to beat Ron Procopio’s 4.14 at 170.28 mph.
SEMIS COME QUICK - With only an eight-car field, it created major match-ups in the Extreme 10.5 semis. In the first, Dan Millen ran a stout 3.90 at 201.07 to defeat Frankie Taylor’s all-over-the-lane 4.09 at 184.70 mph.
Next up was Lamar Swindoll Jr., winner of the season-opening Houston event in Todd Moyer’s turbocharged ’04 Cavalier, against Maple Grove top qualifier Chuck Ulsch in Gil Mobley’s blown ’68 Camaro. And Ulsch won with a 3.92 at 202.97 over Swindoll’s 3.95 at 197.86 mph.
With the ADRL and the track facing an “unofficial” 11 p.m. curfew, round two for the Pro Jr. Dragsters was run between XTF and PN at 10 p.m. to allow a little more time for the post-rain, first-round PN and PX winners to get ready. Word also arrived that the jet car and monster truck would make their passes just before 11 and eliminations would continue afterward.
LEFT LANE WINS - Number-16 qualifier Steve Vick got a big break when Ed Burnley couldn’t answer the call for round two, as Vick’s Camaro was obviously hurting as he made a deliberately soft 9-second pass into the semis.
Stan Allen went red and threw away a 4.09 at 184.25 that wasn’t so impressive itself, but it would have easily beaten the 9.53 by Fredy Scriba after Scriba’s ’63 Vette wasn’t even capable of completing his burnout.
Bob Rahaim ran a career-best 3.81 at 193.71 while running dangerously close to the left wall to beat Burton Auxier’s 3.85 at 193.60 by just two-thousandths of a second.
KA Balooshi nearly hit 200 mph again with a winning 3.78 at 199.79 to best the solid 3.81 at 194.94 by Rickie Jones. Three of four wins came from the left lane.
IT’S SNYDER VS. AL-ANABI - Mick Snyder dropped his career-best time by four hundredths to 3.65 at 208.88 in an easy win over Tommy Gray’s troubled 6.54 pass. It sent Snyder to his third semis in three races this year, though he has not yet advanced to a final.
Al-Anabi’s Alex Hossler won with a 3.67 at 209.20 against Jason Hamstra, who got away first, but drifted toward the center line on his run and eventually took out both finish-line cones.
JR Todd in another Al-Anabi entry kept pace with a 3.64 win at 209.82 over Mike Recchia, who posted a career-best 3.70 at 202.09 mph.
Frankie Taylor ran low ET of the round with a 3.62 at 209.10, but lost to a .067 holeshot by Todd Tutterow in yet one more Al-Anabi car. Taylor left with a .101 light, while Tutterow put together a .034/3.67/207.02 combination to reach the semis. Again, three of four wins came in the left lane with the only exception stemming from Taylor’s starting-line gaffe.
FIRST ROUND
BACK TO RACING - At 8:30 p.m., first-round Pro Nitrous eliminations resumed at Maple Grove Raceway, with Pro Extreme in the lanes behind them.
Kudos to the ADRL and Maple Grove track crews. Split right down the middle, four wins in the left lane and four in the right for Pro Nitrous after a nearly four hour track drying and prep session following sometimes heavy rain.
Most notably, Khalid Al-Balooshi backed up his unprecedented 200.38-mph pass from Friday night’s qualifying session with an outstanding 3.786 at 200.53-mph to establish an official new speed record.
In the upset category put number-16 starter Steve Vick, who got past a furiously pedaling Mahana Al-Naemi with his own tire-shaking 3.97 at 189.23 mph, as well as 11th-place qualifier Fredy Scriba beating number six John Decerbo who shook the tires while Scriba ran 3.96 at 188.67 mph.
FIRST ROUND TO THE EXTREME - This time it was back to the left lane dominating as only number-11 qualifier Mike Recchia prevailed in the right with an upset win over Quain Stott, who looked like he got loose down track. Recchia ran 3.74 at 198.29 while Stott slowed two tenths from his qualifying time to 3.88 at 196.10 mph.
Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, came when Joey Martin’s Lowmad wouldn’t start for the burnout, handing the round win to Tommy Gray with a 4.04 at 184.90 mph.
Another record setter in the final pair as Frankie Taylor took away Martin’s short-lived ET record with a 3.60 at 208.78 that beat Bret Williamson and officially backed up his number-one 3.581 qualifying pass.
SEVEN OUT OF EIGHT - Seven of the top-eight qualifiers in Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) made it out of the opening round and all were running in the left lane. The only exception was defending series champion John Montecalvo, who also was in the left lane, but his ’09 Cobalt made a move toward the wall about half track and he had to bail, handing the responsibility of representing all the bottom-half qualifiers to Canada’s Tony Pontieri.
EVEN DISTRIBUTION -The Pro Extreme Motorcycle wins were far more evenly distributed in round one, with five going to left-lane riders and three belonging to those in the right. And one of those in the left lane was a bye run by number-one starter Ashley Owens, due to only 15 entries making qualifying laps. Among the most notable rides, Paul Gast, owner of Owens’ machine, ran a career-best 4.11 in his defeat of Casey Stemper and Rob Hunnicutt, whose new Suzuki received Best Appearing honors for this weekend’s event, edged Carlos Wilkerson by just two-thousandths of a second at the finish line.
I'LL TAKE THE RIGHT LANE - It was back to being a one-lane race track in Extreme 10.5 eliminations, but this time it was the right lane that hosted all the winners. Again, too, all the top-half qualifiers in the eight-car field advanced, setting up impressive semi-final pairings of Chuck Ulsch versus Lamar Swindoll Jr. and defending class champ Dan Millen versus Frankie Taylor.Ulsch set low ET and top speed of the meet so far with a 3.898 win over Todd Moyer at 204.94 mph. Ulsch and Millen hold lane choice for the semis.
AN EXHIBITION OF WHERE IT ALL BEGAN - For a racing series to grow, chances have to be taken from time to time.
This weekend, the American Drag Racing League is having four drivers, Tyler Hard, Marco Abruzzi, Glen Butcher and Ronnie Proctor, compete in a Top Sportsman exhibition class at the ADRL’s inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags in Reading, Pa.
“It’s going real good and it’s real exciting,” Butcher said Saturday. “It’s a great opportunity for our class and a great opportunity for us as drivers. Top Sportsman is a fun class, and the ADRL is an exciting door-car racing organization.”
Proctor concurred with Butcher’s assessment of the ADRL’s Top Sportsman experiment.
“It has been great and just fantastic,” Proctor said. “Everybody has been very, very nice to us here, and things are going real good. We’re loving it right now, and we are hoping that they bring the class in.”
Abruzzi also had no complaints about his ADRL experience.
“This also is the first time I have ever attended an ADRL race,” Abruzzi said. “This is great. I am a door car guy. It is kind of neat because all of the cars are fast and it is a perfect place to run Top Sportsman and I hope it works out. The track surface here (at Maple Grove) is unbelievable. It is the best I have been on.”
On Saturday, the four Top Sportsman drivers made time trials on a full tree and then the plan was to have them paired up for eliminations later in the day.
Rounding up these four Sportsman drivers to compete in the ADRL exhibition class was done on short notice.
“We scrambled to put this all together,” said Butcher, who lives in Doylestown, Ohio, near Akron. “We wanted to get things started and get some feedback.”
When Proctor received the invitation to race at the ADRL event, he nearly had to decline.
“I broke a gear set Saturday night, and then my trans guy (Marco) Abruzzi calls me Tuesday and asked me if I was racing this weekend,” Proctor said. “I said, ‘No Marco my gear set is broke. You are supposed to send it to me.’ He said I will have to overnight it to you. Then he asked me if I could be at Maple Grove this weekend. I said ‘What do you mean?’ Then, he was telling me about how they (the ADRL) needed four cars and I said great, we will be there. It has worked out. This is a great track.”
Top Sportsman is a popular class for full-bodied cars, with competitors running a dial-in E.T. format. Drivers compete in the class in the NHRA’s Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.
In NHRA, Top Sportsman is a class for full-bodied, side-steer-type vehicles only. Minimum 6.00-second dial-in; maximum 7.99-second dial-in. In the eighth-mile, minimum 3.66- to 5.29-second dial-in. The Top Sportsman cars can have small-block combinations, big block combinations, and features 6-cylinder and 4-cylinder vehicles.
MARTIN MAKES IT OFFICIAL - In an impressive display of Pro Extreme power, Joey Martin officially backed up his 3.584 pass from Friday night’s qualifying session with a 3.596 run under the hot Pennsylvania sun at Maple Grove Raceway during Saturday’s third and final qualifying session.
Securing the official ET record helped erase the sting of losing the number-one spot by just three thousandths to Frankie Taylor the previous evening. Taylor held the previous record, too, ironically set at exactly 3.596 seconds last year in Rockingham, North Carolina.
"It feels good,” said Martin, who built the ’57 Chevy “Lowmad” in his Holt, Florida, race shop. “We've got this baby running fast. This is a lot of fun. We used to show up and just hope to qualify.”
Even more important to him, though, was being able to repeat the performance.
"We just want to be consistent. We just want consistency and then we get runs like that," Martin said, adding that he’s not done yet."I can see a 3.56 or 3.57 tonight. I think we can get that," he predicted for eliminations. "This car will go faster once the track gets a little cooler and tightens up."
THOMPSON DETERMINED TO TAME TURBO BEAST - The frustration continues for Elliott Thompson.
Driving the only turbocharged entry in Pro Extreme, the 27-year old timed out at the starting line before his third and final qualifying attempt on Saturday at Maple Grove Raceway, just 45 minutes away from his Horsham, Pennsylvania, home.
“That was totally on me, my mistake,” a clearly dejected Thompson said after failing to qualify for the 16-car field. “I’ve got to make some changes in the cockpit in the way I’m doing some things or I’m going to have to give up my seat.”
That seems highly unlikely for the Thompson family team that includes brothers Eric and Evan, as well as their dad, Ed, riding herd on the fun-loving trio. But none of them were having much fun during the ADRL’s inaugural visit to their home track.
“We were super excited about this weekend and then it turned out to be this way,” said Thompson, who is yet to qualify for a Pro Extreme field after more three years of part-time attendance on the ADRL national-event tour. “I think about 2 a.m. last night we figured out what we needed. We were hoping to be back on track at least to where we were three weeks ago when we went testing at MIR (Maryland International Raceway).”
There will be more testing on Sunday at Maple Grove, where aided by Travis Quillen, Thompson is determined to find a combination that agrees with his Alan Pittman-built ’53 Corvette.
“I haven’t found many people that think like me with the turbochargers. A lot of people think that I do it the wrong way, but Travis said, ‘No man, I think I can help you, I’ve been waiting to do it that way.’ We bounce ideas off each other and it works really well,” Thompson said. “Control systems are his expertise and bringing him on has brought us that ability to put different controls on the car to allow us to do what we need to do.”
And despite the lack of ADRL success so far, the 2006 NSCA Super Street champion and Rookie of the Year bristles at the suggestion he consider dropping a tried-and-true supercharged combination under the hood.
“No, it’s something we’ve always done, a combination we’ve always worked with and we feel it’s a superior power adder. We see the potential, but we also see it as a challenge to accomplish something that’s never been done before at this level of competition. We’re never going to give up on it, so we’re just going to keep working hard,” he insisted.
“It is a bit frustrating with all of the things we’re going through, but I think we all understand what it is we’re trying to do here. We’re looking forward to what we see coming and that’s why we do it.”
“I was kind of impressed myself when I got out,” the Mocksville, NC, native later quipped. “It was just going left and we were trying to make a run, of course, and when I got out of it I must’ve had the steering wheel turned and it just shot to the right and went for the wall. It wasn’t my best ride.”
Not only did Vick survive intact, his 4.02 held up through the session to pair him up with number-one qualifier Mahana Al-Naemi for the opening round of eliminations. “We’re in, but just barely,” he said. “But that’s a lot better than not being in, so we’ll see what happens.”
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - ADRL BREAKS NEW GROUND IN READING
AS GOOD AS IT GETS – No race was won, but this was about as good as it gets in the American Drag Racing League.
Pro Nitrous drivers and Al-Anabi Racing teammates Mahan Al-Naemi and Khalid Al-Balooshi made ADRL history by clocking the fastest side-by-side pass during qualifying Friday night at the inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Penn.
Al-Naemi clocked a 3.776 in the right lane, and Khalid Al-Balooshi ran the first 200-mph, eighth-mile pass in the world, running 200.38 mph in 3.823 seconds.
“We struggled over in Qatar trying to reach that (200 mph) goal several times,” said Brandon Switzer, Al-Balooshi’s tuner. “You get really close and it is something that is really hard to get to. We went 199.70 numerous times, and it almost seems elusive to do that (go 200 mph). We pretty much threw everything at it, and threw the whole front half of the run away just to try and get it (200 mph) because the conditions were there to get it. It is not very often that those are there to try to do that.”
The 3.776-second performance and the 200 mph speed are not world records because they have not been backed up. Both drivers will have a chance to back up their incredible runs during Saturday’s qualifying session.
With the 200-mph barrier in the rear-view mirror, Switzer already is looking ahead.
“It’s gone,” Switzer said. “Now, you are just looking at how can you accomplish that end run and get a good ET along with it. It feels good to finally get that (go 200 mph) because it will screw up your mind going for it. You are not going to do it tearing stuff up. It is not going to make it. You have to figure out how to do it without tearing stuff up. As you can see, it kills the ET. Now I do not have to worry about it anymore. You can try and run the car the way it is supposed to be run.”
Jenkins, a veteran racer, didn’t have any tune-up secrets to disclose.
“We knew when the sun went down behind the tree line, the track was going to be really fast and we hit the set up really close,” said Jenkins, who is the crew chief for Al-Naemi. “We really didn’t change anything (for the run). There was cloud cover at the track and good atmospheric conditions. It was close to plum conditions.”
Al-Naemi’s 3.77-second lap definitely didn’t surprise Switzer.
“I knew he (Jenkins) was going to do something, and I’m sure vice-versa,” Switzer said. “When those conditions line up, (Jenkins) is good. He has done it for a long time and I have learned a lot from him. We might not go about everything the same way, but we both have the same drive and we have worked on that stuff together. But, I’m sure he didn’t see my car and I didn’t see his car. All I noticed was (Al-Naemi’s) front end was up pretty high, and that caught my eye pretty good.”
Jenkins’ praised the driving ability of Al-Naemi and Al-Balooshi.
“He (Al-Naemi) came out today and made two consistent runs, and he is doing really good,” Jenkins said. “I started with Balooshi five years ago and right now he is as good as anybody. He has come a long way.”
Switzer admitted he and his driver are much more than driver-crew chief these days.
“The relationship Balooshi and I have has come a long way,” Switzer said. “We really didn’t even use to talk. Now we chit-chat, and we know each other really well. We go out to eat and talk on the phone all the time. We have a good relationship now.”
YEAH, HE’S A MADMAN AND HE’S BACK - Defending world champion Frankie Taylor made a dramatic, record pass to head toward Saturday’s third 
and last qualifying session with the provisional number-one spot in Pro Extreme,
It looked like Joey Martin would be Friday’s Pro Extreme polesitter after running a record 3.58, but after a brief rain shower interrupted the late session Taylor was the last one down the track and also ran 3.58—but quicker than Martin by just three-thousandths of a second.
“We screwed in a little more after we watched Joey run that .58,” Taylor said. “He’d run a 3.80 in the first round and we really thought he’d just go a .64 or .65, something safe that he knew he could run, but my hat’s off to him for being aggressive and going for it.”
Taylor was racing without the input of Billy Stocklin, who left the team recently to take a job with Richard Otwell’s “Team O” NHRA Pro Stock effort, and relied on his brother and crew chief, Paul Taylor, to make all the right calls.
“That should quiet some of the haters on the Internet boards who say we can’t go fast without Billy. He was a big part of our team, but my brother, he does a pretty good job by himself, too,” Taylor proudly declared. He needs to run 3.61 or better to back up the pass within the required one percent to establish a new official elapsed time record.
“I don’t expect that to hold up tomorrow; in fact, I’m pretty surprised it held up tonight,” said Ulsch, who is making his first ADRL appearance this season, though he expects to attend at least four more events in 2011. “We’ll just do our best tomorrow and see what happens.”
“I don’t think it’s anything too serious. We probably just damaged a piston, so I just rolled out of it,” Owens said. “We tried hard because we knew the air was good, the track was good and we’d have all night to fix it if anything happened—and now we have all night to fix it.”
“It felt good to be able to come back and get the number-one spot,” he said. “That’s a good sign, but I’m not really surprised. Sonny (Leonard) has given us an awesome engine and this new Jerry Haas car is the best we’ve ever had.”
NOW THAT’S A FIRE - Friday night’s Pro Extreme round also brought the most serious incident of the weekend so far as Quain Stott’s ’63 Corvette erupted in a huge fireball just as it crossed the finish line in 3.73 seconds at just over 200 miles per hour in the left lane.
“It broke a pushrod and then burned a hole through the head,” Stott explained after guiding the car to a safe stop on the track despite being completely blinded, first by flames and then by oil completely coating his windshield. “I was worried about where Jason (Hamstra) was in the other lane, but then I finally caught a glimpse of the wall and just watched that until I got it stopped.”
NOW THAT’S A FIRE, PT. 2 - This wasn’t the plan Vinny Budano had in mind at the ADRL’s inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags.
During the first session of Pro Nitrous qualifying Friday afternoon, Vinny Budano’s 1968 Camaro was halfway down the Maple Grove Raceway track when the engine blew and flames came out from under the left side of his car.
This wasn’t the plan Vinny Budano had in mind to get the day started at the ADRL’s inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags.
Budano clocked a 4.698-effort, but that was the least of his concerns when he arrived back in the pits.
“For the second time in a row since we tried a carbon driveshaft it is broken,” Budano said. “This time it broke at the top of second gear when the motor was about 8,000 rpm. When the driveshaft broke, it let the motor go to 8700 (rpms) and it did some pretty severe engine damage. It was like a bomb went off inside. It broke a couple of rods and hurt the transmission. It was pretty scary because some of the shrap metal came into the car, but not too bad. It is very disappointing. The five pounds of weight that it saves is obviously not worth it.
“I’m pretty sure we are not going to be able to fix everything we need to fix,” Budano said. “Then, with only one qualifier (Saturday), the other engine I have is brand new. It has never been run. It is kind of something I wanted to make a couple of 330s with. It has a different type of intake on it and I do not know if I want to gamble on that.”
Budano said he also broke a drive shaft at the Shakedown at West Palm Beach.
BACK UNDERWAY - After a more than three-hour delay for track grooming at Maple Grove Raceway, Extreme Pro Stock qualifying for the inaugural ADRL Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags began at 2:30 p.m.
Early leaders include defending Extreme Pro Stock World Champion John Montecalvo (4.07/177.14); Ashley Owens in Pro Extreme Motorcycle (4.05/176.10); Chuck Ulsch making his first appearance this year in Extreme 10.5 (3.95/199.17); Khalid Al-Balooshi in Pro Nitrous (3.82/196.62); and reigning Pro Extreme champ Frankie Taylor (3.64/205.01).
With Extreme Pro Stock teams already assembled in the staging lanes for a scheduled 11 a.m. start, competitors from all classes were told in a driver’s meeting at the base of the Maple Grove tower to expect an approximate two-hour delay.
Apparently a sealant applied yesterday by track personnel was not fully cured, creating an unstable, unsafe surface in the shutdown lanes that has to be thoroughly scraped off by heavy machinery before any cars can be sent down the track.
UNCHARTED WATERS - Rolling into Maple Grove, Jason Scruggs finds himself in a rather unfamiliar position.
The Pro Extreme driver is usually at the top or near the top of his class in the American Drag Racing League. However, after two events this season in Houston and Palm Beach, Scruggs is 15th in the point chase.
“We were coming around,” said Scruggs, while preparing for action Friday and Saturday in the inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags at Maple Grove Raceway outside of Reading, Pa. “We did some testing before we got to Palm Beach on an outlaw, pretty slick track in the middle of the day, but when we got to Palm Beach we just found a few more problems that we have when we get on good race tracks. We’re having a few little issues with the way I’m trying to run the converter and the way it makes the chassis work, so I think we’re going to make some strides. We’re going to go testing again and I think we’re going to be a lot better. I think we’ve figured out what’s wrong and in the next race or so we should be a whole lot better.”
However, Scruggs acknowledged he isn’t sure what to expect at Maple Grove Raceway.
“I’ve heard it’s real nice and I’m sure the air is going to be pretty good with all the oxygen from the trees, so it should be real fast,” Scruggs said. “I just wish we were in a little bit better position as far as having a few more laps under our belts.”
Scruggs’ ADRL season began with a thud when he failed to qualifying at the March event in Houston in his red 1963 Corvette.
“Honestly, the Houston deal was the biggest letdown,” Scruggs admitted. “We had a lot of electrical issues with the car, with it misfiring. So, we rewired and changed the whole car between races. But that’s just racing. And yes, we got beat in the first round at Palm Beach, but we could’ve went a few rounds. We had a 3.70s race car in the heat and we feel like we should’ve been able to do a little better than we did.”
Despite the adversity Scruggs has faced, the 2007 and 2008 ADRL Pro Extreme champion, is keeping his racing in perspective.
“Yeah, we’re disappointed because most of the time, or up until last year, I’ve been in probably the top two or three cars all year in the points and now here I am barely in the top 15 in points,” Scruggs said. “But, we’re not really worried about it now. I mean, we would like to be a lot better, but now we’re just going to race and try to have a good time and find our combination and hopefully win some races.”
Scruggs also knows now is not the time to push the panic button.
“I think we can get back in the thick of things, but you know right now what we’d need - one (of the drivers) who has done real good early to not do so good in a couple of races or miss a race or something like that,” Scruggs said. “We’ve only been to two races so far and I’ve seen folks struggle for a couple of races before and still be OK, sometimes even the top cars. So I don’t think it is way out of the question that we could get back in the top one or two in the points. Realistically, if we don’t get it all together and improve quickly, every race that goes by puts us that much further behind.”
Scruggs admitted the competitors in the ADRL are all stepping up.
“It is getting tougher, but it’s always been competitive,” Scruggs said. “The big thing that’s changed is the torque converter because it has made everybody more consistent and more consistently fast, and a lot of the guys have been running one longer than we have. Most of the guys either raced all year last year with one, or they raced in Qatar all winter with one, and some of them did both, so they got a lot of runs with the torque converter. And, we’ve had three races and a couple of test days.
“We meant to do a little bit more testing in the offseason than we ended up doing and that’s one thing that hurt us to start the year. And all in all, we’ve got a few problems that we didn’t think we would have with the whole combination. But I think we’re making strides and I think we’ll be fine.”
Scruggs does believe no one is out of reach in the Pro Extreme ranks.
“It’s anybody’s race. There’s probably not a single car out there that’s not capable of running a low-3.70 or maybe even a high 60 run, and most of them could run mid-60s if they’re given the right conditions,” Scruggs said. “And when you’ve got that, it’s so competitive that you also got to have a little luck to go rounds sometimes. I mean, look at Jason Hamstra, he won the first race and was runner-up at the second and he’s got a fast car and run real good, but he also got a couple of lucky breaks along the way that let him advance, too. He’s living proof that it’s going to take a little bit of both to win this thing.”
THE FLAGSHIP - The Quarter-Max® Racing Pro Nitrous team announced that Penske Racing Shocks (of Reading, Pa) will play the role of the team’s major sponsor at this weekend’s ADRL Penske Inaugural Northeast Drags held at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, PA.
“We are very excited to be working with the Quarter-Max team, they have helped our drag race program drastically over the years,"
said Penske representative Adam Lambert. "They were one of the first teams to give us an opportunity to show the quality and repeatablity of Penske shocks. We are constantly working to make our product better, and with the help of Rick Jones and his team we have opened many eyes to what a quality suspension can do on the race track. “
“I am very excited to have Penske Racing Shocks on board as our major sponsor for the race this weekend," added Rickie Jones. "For several years now our team has done a lot of testing and has worked very closely with Penske in the development of their drag shock program. This year our trailer is equipped with a shock dyno and serves as the home base for Penske Racing Shocks at all of the ADRL events. We are stocked full of shock and strut parts and can provide full shock dyno/rebuild services to all the racers with Penske shock representative Adam Lambert working out of our trailer and attending every race this year. I have been really looking forward to visiting the Penske headquarters on Thursday with their shop just a few miles from the track in Maple Grove.
"With the combination of the great track surface at Maple Grove, and the cool weather conditions in the forecast, I predict that we will see the records fall in all the classes this weekend.”
THAT'S A 10-5 GOOD BUDDY - It’s been more than two years since Andy Jensen last raced with the ADRL, but he and his single-turbocharged ’68 Camaro will make their return in the 
Extreme 10.5 (XTF) class this weekend in the inaugural Penske Truck Leasing Northeast Drags at Maple Grove Raceway, near Reading, Pennsylvania.
“I can get to Maple Grove in just under two hours, so it’s a pretty decent ride and we’re going to give it a whirl,” the Nescopeck, Pennsylvania-based race engine shop owner confirms. “We put 10.5 tires on the car last weekend and made three hits on them. I don’t think we’re going to go in there and set the world on fire, but if we get down the track I’m pretty sure we can go quick enough to qualify in the top half of the field.”
In September 2008, during his last time out with the all-eighth-mile ADRL series, Jensen turned in a record-setting performance at Rockingham Dragway—which promptly got him (and all other turbo entries) tossed out of the Pro Nitrous (PN) class. Until that time turbo cars were part of the PN mix, but when Jensen lowered the ET record to 3.87 seconds, ADRL officials had seen enough.
“Looking back, we probably shouldn’t have allowed turbochargers and centrifugal superchargers into Pro Nitrous to begin with,” then-Vice President of Competition Bubba Corzine admitted at the time. “However, in an effort to grow the class while at the same time giving a well-deserving and dedicated group of racers a place to race, we allowed them in, always with the thought that when they went quick enough and fast enough we would switch them over to Pro Extreme. We’re on record as having said that from the beginning and Andy’s proven beyond any doubt that a turbo car can run Pro Extreme numbers, so that's where they'll have to go now.”
But Jensen never did make the jump to Pro Extreme and as the weeks turned into months and months into years, the PX crowd got quicker and faster to the point where Jensen’s unique combination of a single 106-mm turbo pumping into a small-block-Chevy 427 was no longer competitive.
So just last weekend while qualifying for a “big tire” race at Dunn-Benson Dragstrip in North Carolina, Jensen bolted on a pair of 10.5W slicks for the first time. He lost traction on attempts one and three, but the second run delivered an encouraging 2.60 time to the 330-foot mark, which Jensen says should translate to a high 3.90 at the finish line.
“We didn’t change a thing (from 2008); this is the same car, same motor, the only difference is we put the 10.5 tires on it. Oh, and we did put a converter in; we got rid of the clutch,” Jensen says.
“We ran pretty successfully with a clutch in ’08 and ’09, but we decided to try and step it up and had a really expensive custom clutch built for the car and it just didn’t work. We fought with that thing all last year until we’d just had enough, so we put the converter in for this year,” he explains.
“We’re running a Lenco-Bruno combination and it seems like it’s pretty decent, but we really don’t have a lot of runs on the car yet. Being from Pennsylvania the tracks around here don’t even open until April, so it’s still pretty new to us. And with the 10-inch tires we’ve only got the three runs, so we’re really going down (to Maple Grove) blind.
“We plan on being able to put more power to it because we were on a mediocre surface last week and didn’t do too bad, so on a better surface like the ADRL has we should be able to give it a lot more.”
Right now, Jensen is committed only to attending the Maple Grove event; however, he does have tentative plans to also race throughout the summer in four consecutive ADRL events at Martin, Michigan; Petersburg, Virginia; Rockingham, North Carolina; and Norwalk, Ohio.
“We can do all those because they’re relatively close, but you never know, if we get this figured out on 10.5s and it’s going fast and we’re in the hunt, we might actually do a couple more,” Jensen says. “We’ll see how it goes.”
NO PLACE LIKE FIRST PLACE - “We must be doing something right,” Berner said. The Summit Racing Equipment XPS team certainly has been doing something right, and people have 
taken notice. The most recent Drag Illustrated Power Rankings have placed Berner number one, ousting Cary Goforth from the coveted spot. “That really means more to me right now than the points standings,” continued Berner, “especially this early in the season. We really appreciate Wes [Buck, editor] and the guys at Drag Illustrated for taking notice of our accomplishments, as well as for all they do for drag racing coverage.
“I owe 99% of my success to my team. Between the guys in the engine shop, the guys that travel to the races and Pat and Doug working on the tuning end, they pull it all together to make this thing work, and they keep me in check in the process. I’m excited to see where this team will take us this season.”
Berner will head to this weekend’s ADRL Penske Inaugural Northeast Drags as number one in XPS points, having won the most recent ADRL event of the season at Palm Beach International Raceway.
“This weekend is set up for killer conditions. With highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s, if there’s ever an opportunity to set a record, it’ll be at Maple Grove this weekend. Our team is amped up heading into this event. The motor’s been freshened and we’re hoping to be the first XPS team in the three second range.
“There’s a lot of great competition out there though. No one is an easy target, and we know they won’t be cutting us any slack. We’ve got to give it all we’ve got this weekend, and we’ll need all the Summit fans out there to cheer us on as we set a new record! We really enjoyed doubling up for Summit with Greg Anderson when Palm Beach and Charlotte were on the same weekends. I hope that trend continues for Team Summit!”
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