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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK – QUICK AND FAST QUALIFYING CUT SHORT BY CARNAGE, CURFEW

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY – When the engine in Jason Harris’ Pro Nitrous entry let go and oiled the right lane at Virginia Motorsports Park on Friday, it gave the Pro Extreme (PX) class the rest of the night off during the first day of the ADRL U.S. Drags.

With an 11 p.m. curfew approaching and facing about a 45-minute clean-up, ADRL officials quickly reached the decision to run the third round of PX qualifying at 10 a.m. Saturday morning, prior to the scheduled noon start for the fourth and final sessions for all six official classes and this weekend’s special exhibition of NHRA-legal Pro Modified cars.

It also left the 3.668 at 204.88 by reigning class champ Frankie Taylor in the opening round as the provisional pole-sitting elapsed time.

“That run we actually softened it up at the start just to get it down the track,” Taylor revealed. “We saw everyone ahead of us smoking the tires so we just took a ton out of it early on.”

After breaking in the first round, current points leader Jason Hamstra recovered to run 3.705 at a class-leading 207.56 mph to slot his ’70 Duster into the second-place spot, followed by Jason Scruggs, who ran 3.709 in his best pass of the season so far after struggling to adapt to an automatic transmission in his ’63 Vette. Quain Stott also made a nice 3.713 pass to place fourth, with 2010 ADRL Rookie of the Year Mick Snyder rounding out the top five at 3.731 seconds. Todd Tutterow, in the debut of a brand-new car, placed sixth, just one-thousandth behind Snyder.

QUICK AND FAST – The final car down the eighth mile Friday night at Virginia Motorsports Park ended Day One of the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV in memorable fashion with a 3.784 at 198.15 mph that established both ends of the track’s Pro Nitrous records and set Mahana Al-Naemi up to earn his fifth consecutive number-one start in the class. If the Qatari driver can back his time up within the required one percent during Saturday’s lone qualifying and eliminations rounds, he also would reset the official class ET record.

“Mahana’s getting more and more confident with each pass and he’s doing a phenomenal job,” crew chief Shannon Jenkins stated. “We give him the car, but he knows what to do with it.”

Al-Naemi beat out former Al-Anabi teammate Burton Auxier for the top spot heading into Saturday’s fourth and final qualifying session. Auxier, the defending class champion, went 3.803, followed by Al-Anabi’s Mike Castellana, Robert Rahaim, Jeff Naiser and Stan Allen. All six of the top qualifiers were driving either 1968 or ’69 Camaros.

SWIPED IT AWAY – In the last pair of Extreme 10.5 (XTF) cars down the Virginia Motorsports Park eighth mile in Friday’s third and final qualifying round during the ADRL U.S. Drags, Chuck Ulsch and his Mobley Motorsports ’68 Camaro wrested away the provisional lead from Frankie Taylor with a 3.902-seconds blast at 205.01 mph that set both ends of the XTF track records.

Just a few pairs earlier, Taylor improved on his 3.964 from the second session with a 3.911 in his ’05 Corvette, while Dan Millen completed the triumvirate of screw-blown qualifiers at the head of the field with a 3.914 in his 2011 Mustang, with Grant McCrary’s turbocharged ’08 Stratus (3.969) and Billy Glidden’s nitrous-huffing 2010 Mustang filling out the top five with a 4.034 from the opening round.

Ulsch’s advancement came after his team worked hard between rounds to pull all eight pistons and make repairs to his car’s 526 c.i Hemi after a connecting rod failed halfway through his second attempt.

“I felt it lay over so I got out of it right away and it’s a good thing I did because when we got back to the pits the motor was real tight to turn over. It turned out the connecting rod in number seven (cylinder) was bent,” he explained. “If that had broke, we would have had a real mess to deal with.

As it was, the team barely made repairs in time.

“They (ADRL officials) kept coming around asking if we were going to be ready, if we were going to make it,” Ulsch said. “A lot of teams would’ve probably called it a day, but we came here to race and to have fun. To thrash like we did, I just think that’s so cool.”

For the first time this season, the Extreme 10.5 class will feature a full 16-car field for eliminations at the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV, with Kevin Fortney currently clinging to the last position with an off-the-pace 5.531 in his nitrous-boosted ’99 Monte Carlo.

EVEN ENGINE ISSUES CAN’T STOP HIM – It’s no secret the Pro Extreme Motorcycle (PXM) class this year belongs to Decatur, Alabama’s Ashley Owens. He owns both ends of the official class records, qualified number one at each of five events held this season, winning three of them, and is poised to add a sixth top-qualifying honor after running a track record 4.027 at 176.12 mph Friday night at Virginia Motorsports Park to pace the quickest PXM field in ADRL history.

The record-setting run opened with a .996 sixty-foot time, the first sub-one-second time to that point in (non-nitro) motorcycle drag racing history during the ADRL U.S. Drags qualifying.

“If I had been in the tower and seen that .996 pop up on the screen I would’ve thought we were going to see the sport’s first three-second pass; that’s what we were going after,” said Paul Gast, team owner for Owens. “But instead it nicked a piston and slowed down a little on the top end, so Ashley is back in the pits right now changing out that motor. We’re not going to fix it here. I want to take it back to the shop where we can figure out why it happened.”

Casey Stemper stepped up with a career-best 4.089 at 173.54 to slot into the second position, followed by Canada’s Terry Schweigert, former back-to-back class champ Billy Vose and second-place points man Eric McKinney, who all ran 4.11 laps.

With one qualifying round left to go on Saturday before eliminations begin, Dave Vantine rounds out the record-setting 16-bike field with a 4.214, edging out NHRA veteran Craig Treble, who ran an identical time in his first ADRL outing, but was .79 mph slower.

GOING FORTH AGAIN – Cary Goforth is starting to make a habit of finishing on Friday with the Extreme Pro Stock qualifying lead, doing so for the third-straight event and the fourth time this season. He’s also led his father, Dean, into the fourth and final session on Saturday for the second-straight race.

“Man, I’d like to get him over that hump,” the current class points leader said after securing the provisional number-one position with a 4.084-seconds pass at 176.49 mph in his ’09 Cobalt that beat his father’s time by just five-thousandths. “When he got down to the top end he was so mad, telling me he guesses he just can’t get it done, but it’ll come.”

After running 4.11 and 4.13 in the preliminaries on Friday, Goforth yanked the clutch and made his top-qualifying run with just a guess on the set-up.

“I can’t believe it ran an .11 with no clutch left in the car,” he said.  “I told the guys that even if it just blows the tires off at least we’d learn something and it wouldn’t be running through the clutch any more.”

Goforth emphasized the atmosphere will dictate whether he or anyone else will go quicker in the fourth and final session on Saturday.

“I was really surprised that Monte (John Montecalvo) didn’t go around us tonight or at least get right there with us, but here we are one and two again,” Goforth said. “Hopefully that will hold up, but if conditions are right any one of us could step it up, I think.”

Montecalvo placed third in his ’09 Cobalt, while Richie Stevens had the first Ford in the field, followed by Trevor Eman with another Mustang rounding out the top five. Canada’s Tony Pontieri held on to the 16th spot in the second-tightest XPS field in history with a 4.138 at 175.07 mph.

KNOWLES LEADS PM EXHIBITION – After two rounds of qualifying, Mike Knowles may have been questioning his decision to drive 32 hours to Petersburg, Virginia, to compete in the first race ever for “legal” Pro Mods at an ADRL national event. But after going 3.900 seconds at 189.92 mph to take over the top spot during Friday night’s third session, the long tow from Grand Junction, Colorado, suddenly made a lot more sense.

“That’s what we were looking for in the first two runs, but it doesn’t always work that way,” Knowles said of being mired last of seven entries heading into the evening round. “We’ve been struggling a bit with the clutch, surfacing it a bit differently from what we had been doing and we kind of expected to struggle at first—just not as much as we did those first two runs.”

Knowles stressed, however, that the changes he made to the clutch were done so as a test for his upcoming NHRA U.S. Nationals date next month at Indianapolis and not as a result of running the ADRL’s eighth-mile race distance. “I don’t have enough data (for eighth-mile racing) to go in there and start messing around with that,” he said. “And basically you’re running all out to the eighth anyway in quarter-mile racing. It’s still pretty hopped up.”

The trip to Virginia Motorsports Park also represents Knowles’ first visit to an ADRL event.

“I’m enjoying it. The fans have been great, very interested in what we’re doing, and it’s been a lot of fun. Plus, (ADRL President) Tim McAmis built my car, so I wanted to support what he’s doing here,” Knowles added. “We’re good friends and I’d probably drive anywhere for him.”

Knowles admitted to being “a little disappointed” that more NHRA cars didn’t show up, but expressed confidence the traditional Pro Mod class has potential within the ADRL.

“You hear a lot of people talk about how there’s no weight break here (ADRL). Well, in our class there is, so you just have to go get a roots supercharger, weigh 2,650 pounds and go racing,” he pointed out. “I think this class will definitely grow.

Following Knowles on the qualifying list were Leah Pruett-Leduc (3.92/192.60) in just her third Pro Mod appearance, veteran Mike Janis (3.94/188.99) and K.A. Balooshi (3.96/190.43), who led through the first two sessions, but had to do a masterful driving job to save his car from the wall on Friday night.

TAKING HIS LICKS – Lee Adkins experienced a nitrous backfire upon starting his ’68 Camaro for the opening round of Pro Mod qualifying, resulting in a small fire within the hood scoop that was quickly extinguished by trackside officials.

TEXAS TUNE-UP – Tired of racing at the mercy of points leader Ashley Owens all year long, one prominent member of the Pro Extreme Motorcycle community is fighting back in Virginia. Spotted in the Eric McKinney pit Thursday night was noted carb manufacturer and tuner Kevin Gilham of Lectron Fuel Systems who was flown in from Lorena, TX, by McKinney’s father and crew chief, Scott.

“Kevin is absolutely the best in the business,” Scott McKinney stated. “I asked if he had the time to fly up here and here he is; we had to do something to go after Ashley and Paul (Gast, team owner for Owens); those two are just so strong right now.” Gilham uses computer-based tuning to adjust exhaust gas temperatures and air/fuel ratios, among other parameters. “Each cylinder has its own carburetor, so it’s very critical that you synchronize each one,” he said.

SPEEDTECH U.S. DRAGS IV UNDER WAY — The ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV at Virginia Motorsports started at 12:30 on Friday, delayed half an hour by last-minute track prep required after an early morning rain shower. Top Sportsman racers Donny Thompson (right) and Ray Abell were the first drivers down the track, eventually placing 14th and 15th, respectively, after 22 cars made laps in the first qualifying session. Raceland, Louisiana’s Earl Folse led the way with a 4.120 at 179.30-mph pass in his nitrous-fed ’68 Camaro, with the blown ’41 Willys of L.J. Wood Jr. second at 4.151 and 172.70 mph.

H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS FREEZES OVER – A day that some said never would come came today at Virginia Motorsports Park as Mike Knowles (near lane) and K.A. Balooshi made the first passes by NHRA-legal Pro Mods at an ADRL national event.

Only seven cars came to the line for the opening session, but Lee Adkins broke on the line. The order: 1. K.A. Balooshi (3.96/190.43) 2. Mike Janis (3.97/190.03) 3. Leah Pruett-LeDuc (3.98/191.35) 4. David Campbell (4.08/184.35) 5. Thomas Jones II (4.28/178.99) 6. Mike Knowles (6.14/83.14).

NEW RIDE FOR SWINDOLL – Last month’s ADRL event at Martin, Michigan, ended for Lamar Swindoll Jr. against the right wall just before reaching the finish line in a solo run at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park after Bill Devine was shut down after his burnout for the opening round of Extreme 10.5 (XTF) eliminations. Though the Todd Moyer-owned ’04 Cavalier was not seriously damaged by the impact, Swindoll did not return for round two and the accident hastened his switch to a new ride for this weekend’s ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV at Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP), near Richmond.

“We actually had this car a week before the Martin race,” said Chad Rogers, crew chief for Moyer, who recently purchased the ’68 Camaro from Pro Nitrous racer Robert Mathis. “The plan was to gradually switch everything over, but after the crash we worked really hard to get it ready to come here (VMP) and just finished it this past Sunday. I want to especially thank Brian Sheppard for all the fabrication work he did for us in a short period of time.”

The Houston-based team yanked the NRC-built 618 c.i. motor out of the wounded Cav and transferred “every nut and bolt we could,” Swindoll said. But due to the Camaro’s longer wheelbase they moved its twin Precision Turbo 108-mm turbochargers from the nose of the car to under the hood, behind each front wheel.

“I would actually prefer they were still going to be getting the cooler air up front, but we had to do it this way to keep the car’s balance right,” Swindoll explained. “That would’ve been an awful lot of weight to be hanging out there in front of the wheels.”

A pair of practice hits at Houston Motorsports Park last Sunday (Aug. 7), confirmed everything was buttoned up and functioning. Four more test runs yesterday (Aug. 10) at North Carolina’s Piedmont Dragway before continuing on to Richmond yielded a best 60-foot time of .104 seconds.

“That’s encouraging, but I’m looking forward to getting it on the track here with the ADRL prep and seeing what it can do,” Swindoll said. “The car feels good, though. I think we’ll be okay.”

SIZE DOES MATTER – After a semi-successful test last weekend of a 717-c.i. engine recently acquired from Jeff Naiser, Extreme 10.5 star Billy Glidden was unsure early this week whether he’d have the new billet-based powerplant in his 2010 Mustang for the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV, or his trusty—but aged and increasingly outclassed—498 c.i. Ford Hemi.

But after last-minute repairs were completed Wednesday night, and with longtime friend Alan Whitaker of ARW Trucking along to help out with the driving, Glidden departed his Whiteland, Indiana, race shop at 11:30 p.m., bound for Virginia Motorsports Park, where he arrived about noon on Thursday with the new motor firmly in place.

“I have no expectations; it’s all guesswork right now,” Glidden declared. “I’ll leave it in at least through two sessions (of qualifying on Saturday) and see where we are then. Either way we’re under the gun.”

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? – David Campbell found a unique use for toy foam footballs that blend in perfectly on his hot-looking, Race Tech-built ’70 Camaro. Campbell, a regular at Piedmont Dragway’s Big Dog series, entered Pro Nitrous when the ADRL visited Rockingham Dragway in his native North Carolina last year, but plans to compete in Virginia in the NHRA-legal Pro Mod class recently added as an exhibition event within the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV.

FILING IN – The powerhouse R2B2 Racing team owned by Atlanta businessman and primary NHRA Pro Mod sponsor Roger Burgess arrived mid-afternoon on Thursday for the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags IV at Virginia Motorsports Park. New R2B2 driver Leah Pruett-LeDuc will make her ADRL debut this weekend in the exhibition Pro Mod class in a blown ’69 Camaro tuned by Alky Funny Car legend Bob Newberry.

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