TODD'S OPTIMISM JUSTIFIED
Tue, 2007-05-29 17:26
Fear not, drag racing fans. J.R. Todd recently saw four sprint car races in
seven days, but he has no plans of altering his choice of motorsports
competition at this juncture.
“I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to business,” said Todd, who was biding his time at sprint car venues after being idled for almost a month due to a race postponement that moved the Bristol, Tenn., event from May 18 to July 8.
There will be plenty of action in store for Todd and his SKULL Shine/Torco Racing Fuels Top Fuel teammates when they report for duty at Heartland Park Topeka, site of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals, Friday through Sunday. It is the start of a streak of eight races in nine weeks, including six in succession.
“Our team made the most of the extra time off because we know we have a long road ahead of us,” added Todd. “We know we’ll make it through.”
Fear not, drag racing fans. J.R. Todd recently saw four sprint car races in
seven days, but he has no plans of altering his choice of motorsports
competition at this juncture.
“I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to business,” said Todd, who was biding his time at sprint car venues after being idled for almost a month due to a race postponement that moved the Bristol, Tenn., event from May 18 to July 8.
There will be plenty of action in store for Todd and his SKULL Shine/Torco Racing Fuels Top Fuel teammates when they report for duty at Heartland Park Topeka, site of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals, Friday through Sunday. It is the start of a streak of eight races in nine weeks, including six in succession.
“Our team made the most of the extra time off because we know we have a long road ahead of us,” added Todd. “We know we’ll make it through.”
More importantly, however, was the opportunity to make test runs at O’Reilly Motorsports Park, near the team’s Brownsburg, Ind., shop.
“We really have struggled for the past couple of races and the car showed good signs of improvement during the testing,” continued NHRA’s 2006 rookie of the year. “Kevin (Poynter, the team’s new assistant crew chief) was excited about getting the tune-up back on track and so is the rest of the team. I think this is the most excited the team has been in a long time – because of how we ran in testing.
“Our main goal was to get the car off the starting line because that’s where we where we’ve had trouble in the last few races. We were more than thrilled with the results, but now we have to get to the track and prove we can do it in competition.”
Poynter joined the team prior to the last event at St. Louis. He was Eric Medlen’s assistant crew chief and served in the same role with Top Fuel driver David Baca in recent years.
“Kevin is excited with the challenge and the guys are excited about working with him,” Todd said. “He’s been around long enough to know how it works and now he has an opportunity to do it himself. There are some ‘new age’ crew chiefs out there and I think he’s one of them. He had a chance to work by himself (making tuning decisions) at the test session and he just went back to the way we were running the car last year and at the beginning of this year and it seemed to work out.
“He’s really not looking at making changes; he’s just going back to the way the car was, and that’s the way it should be.”
First-round setbacks at Atlanta and St. Louis troubled Todd going into the long layoff.
“We gave away too many points to the rest of the drivers in the last two races,” he said, “and we can’t be doing that.”
A two-time winner (at Pomona, Calif., and Houston) in the first seven races of NHRA’s new Countdown format that trims the field to the top eight after 17 races, Todd does sit third, but his grip is tenuous. On the positive side, he has 408 points and is 68 points behind No. 2 Brandon Bernstein and 91 out of the top spot. However, 10th place Cory McClenathan is only 72 points out of third place.
But now Todd believes his ride will be much improved when qualifying gets underway Friday.
“I’m really excited about our prospects,” he concluded.
“I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to business,” said Todd, who was biding his time at sprint car venues after being idled for almost a month due to a race postponement that moved the Bristol, Tenn., event from May 18 to July 8.
There will be plenty of action in store for Todd and his SKULL Shine/Torco Racing Fuels Top Fuel teammates when they report for duty at Heartland Park Topeka, site of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals, Friday through Sunday. It is the start of a streak of eight races in nine weeks, including six in succession.
“Our team made the most of the extra time off because we know we have a long road ahead of us,” added Todd. “We know we’ll make it through.”
Fear not, drag racing fans. J.R. Todd recently saw four sprint car races in
seven days, but he has no plans of altering his choice of motorsports
competition at this juncture.“I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to business,” said Todd, who was biding his time at sprint car venues after being idled for almost a month due to a race postponement that moved the Bristol, Tenn., event from May 18 to July 8.
There will be plenty of action in store for Todd and his SKULL Shine/Torco Racing Fuels Top Fuel teammates when they report for duty at Heartland Park Topeka, site of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals, Friday through Sunday. It is the start of a streak of eight races in nine weeks, including six in succession.
“Our team made the most of the extra time off because we know we have a long road ahead of us,” added Todd. “We know we’ll make it through.”
More importantly, however, was the opportunity to make test runs at O’Reilly Motorsports Park, near the team’s Brownsburg, Ind., shop.
“We really have struggled for the past couple of races and the car showed good signs of improvement during the testing,” continued NHRA’s 2006 rookie of the year. “Kevin (Poynter, the team’s new assistant crew chief) was excited about getting the tune-up back on track and so is the rest of the team. I think this is the most excited the team has been in a long time – because of how we ran in testing.
“Our main goal was to get the car off the starting line because that’s where we where we’ve had trouble in the last few races. We were more than thrilled with the results, but now we have to get to the track and prove we can do it in competition.”
Poynter joined the team prior to the last event at St. Louis. He was Eric Medlen’s assistant crew chief and served in the same role with Top Fuel driver David Baca in recent years.
“Kevin is excited with the challenge and the guys are excited about working with him,” Todd said. “He’s been around long enough to know how it works and now he has an opportunity to do it himself. There are some ‘new age’ crew chiefs out there and I think he’s one of them. He had a chance to work by himself (making tuning decisions) at the test session and he just went back to the way we were running the car last year and at the beginning of this year and it seemed to work out.
“He’s really not looking at making changes; he’s just going back to the way the car was, and that’s the way it should be.”
First-round setbacks at Atlanta and St. Louis troubled Todd going into the long layoff.
“We gave away too many points to the rest of the drivers in the last two races,” he said, “and we can’t be doing that.”
A two-time winner (at Pomona, Calif., and Houston) in the first seven races of NHRA’s new Countdown format that trims the field to the top eight after 17 races, Todd does sit third, but his grip is tenuous. On the positive side, he has 408 points and is 68 points behind No. 2 Brandon Bernstein and 91 out of the top spot. However, 10th place Cory McClenathan is only 72 points out of third place.
But now Todd believes his ride will be much improved when qualifying gets underway Friday.
“I’m really excited about our prospects,” he concluded.
Categories:
