2009 NMRA Milan Coverage

[powerjames]

We're here at Milan, ready to go after a light rain this morning hit the property. The day's forecast looks good through this early afternoon, so we're going to get the program underway as soon as possible.

One of the things you can check out is our entire FRIDAY PHOTO GALLERY that we shot on Friday during the event.

Click here for the gallery.



Already run was the Ford Media Invitational Round 1, and I'm disappointed to announce that I proved that bracket racing is not my game. Lined up with Larry Jewitt from Mustang Enthusiast, I managed to turn a .065 light into a loss by .007 seconds when I played bumper games rather than running it all the way out and lifting at the end of the run!

Our coverage is possible due to the event coverage sponsorship of SCT Performance, manufacturer of tuning and flash devices for performance vehicles.

[powerjames]

The Saturday Photo Gallery is NOW Live. Click here to check it out.

Notes from Round 3 Qualifying

Drag Radial is getting under way here at Milan, for the 3rd round of qualifying. #2 qualifier Dave Guy took on Enzo Pecchini the #4 qualifier, and and Enzo black tracked down the entire track, while guy tripped a clean 8.03 to stay in the second qualified spot so far behind Jason Lee. Ken Ewer went an 8.23 to stay #3, and Matt Bell went in the #9 position as so far in this round. (He was so far unqualified). In the top spot, comes up Jason Lee to improve his 8.01, but doesn't get it done with an 8.04. Still, Lee has figured out how to be super consistent. Finally, Bob Kurgan was the last racer up, Kurgan, who experienced some mechanical troubles and only went 10.68 on Friday, carried the wheels hard and pedaled several times on his way to a 9.49.



Hot Street is up next, and Hanlon cards a consistent 8.88 at 158. Mph is good, but Hanlon's E.T. is a little off. Next run, Ben Mens goes violently up on the bumper, slamming his vehicle down hard. He was actually up on one wheel at one point. His car is stopped on the track. In the next lane, Ben's heroics outshined Blankenships very nice 8.71. After some clean up, Max Gross came up in the left lane. Of course, HE put it on the bumper also. The track is sticky. Wild.



The EFI Renegade racers are a bit concerned after watching the Hot Street cars doing the bumper dragging. Bart Tobener had a nice hit, but clicks it about 1,000 feet. Not sure if there was mechanical trouble as he was on a good run. Perhaps he's playing with the ladder. Only 2 Renegade cars made passes.

After some down time, the Super Street Outlaw drivers are locked and loaded. #1 qualifier going into this session is John Urist with his 7.400. Tuten improves to a 7.444 at 192 mph, but it's only enough to stay in the second spot. Urist, fresh off his 197 mph run, is up next taking on Johnny Mac. Urist was all over the track, going 7.49, to the 7.53 at 194 for Mac. Huspen is up next, and he has issues with the car, lifting.

Pro Outlaw 10.5W.... AJ Powell goes a 7.23, improves slightly but does not improve his qualifying position. Murillo skipped the second qualifying session after his 222 mph blast in round 1, but he's up in Round 3, rolling up to the line against Keith Neal who is the only other 6-second car in the field with a 6.92. Neal is all over the tires almost crosses the centerline, while Murillo goes 220 mph, 6.81... even quicker... insane. Finally, NMRA Champion Conrad Scary's all-primer machine, back in only a few months after his wreck at the first NMRA event, has a single run. A nice clean 6.96 at 193 mph puts himself in the #3 spot trailing Neal and Murillo.



Team Aeromotive was on hand with Steve's 6-second Mustang. After a 1.03 60-foot, Matusek's ride drifted toward the wall and he had to lift going 8.84. Hopefully the track will hold for a future pass and we'll get a chance to see this machine go 6.70s or 6.60s.

[Andrew Casselberry]

In Saturday's final round of Edelbrock Hot Street qualifying, Ben Men's launched hard and came down even harder cracking the oil pan and bending the lower radiator support. His Milan weekend is over. Check out the damage in front of the red LX... that's a mixture of motor oil from the Hot Street engine and tears from Mens.



Pitted next to Mens is number 1 qualifier Robbie Blankenship who runs Roush power in Edelbrock Hot Street. After checking the plugs and doing the standard maintenance they are ready for round 1 eliminations at Milan. Blankenship is currently the #1 qualifier with Roush power.



Bangin Bob Hanlon qualified 3rd in Edelbrock Hot Street with his four speed TFS headed Ford 363 c.i. small block, a combination he has been running for many moons. We've always speculated that the G-force transmission shifted combination could win a championship if Bob could make a committed effort to run all of the events.



John Leslie, Jr. qualified 2nd in ACT Factory Stock. Leslie is happy with the way the car is running, and is still looking for his first NMRA win in his long NMRA career. Leslie is tripping 1.50 60-foots, and is looking to move up in the standings.



Vinny Barber is running Procharger Super Street Outlaw S197 at Milan. Complete with a full Steeda body kit, he built the car to run NMRA Drag Radial but is trying it out in Super Street Outlaw this weekend. Barber is using this weekend as a test session and his best e.t. is a 8.98 with a turbocharged 4.6L modular engine powering the 2005 Mustang.



Conrad Scarry and crew are ready for first round in Turbonetics Pro 10.5. In the final qualifying session, Scarry ran a 6.9620 at 193.84 mph. Scarry is getting a feel for the new car and the Kenny Seeger Motorsports team has been making adjustments to the chassis and tune after each run.



Keith Neal qualified number 2 in Pro 10.5. Keith builds automatic transmissions for some of the 10.5 tire racers and runs a turbocharged small-block in his 2004 Cobra.



AJ Powell was swapping the tires on his 2005 Mustang Pro Outlaw car. A J is qualified 4th and admits he is down on power from the turbo guys. He's been busy sorting out a new fuel system on his supercharged small block.

[Tom@StangTV]

Over in the pits, Fred Bodnar has been chasing the set up in his 95 Mustang Drag Radial car. The Radials have been breaking loose a lot this weekend for them, as they are still getting use to the new combination they are running this year. The team plans on adjusting the power today and making a few adjustments in hopes taking a win in the first round.



Tommy Godfrey has been sitting on top of the Factory Stock Qualifying sheet for most of the weekend. The team’s goal this weekend was to stay consistent. They gathered lots of good data from yesterday and feel very confident that they will be able to stay on top of the set up as the day goes on and they hope to make it into the finals.



We ran into Mark Anderson who is currently in the number one spot this weekend. They are a little worried about the weather effecting their set up, but feels that nothing is needed other than a fresh change of tires.



Matt Bell, who we spoke to last night, did end up spending most of the night working on his 92 Mustang swapping the converter. He said that the one he pulled out of the car only had 6 passes on it, so it had no reason to fail. The team had an older converter in the trailer and was able to get that one in and should be ready to go for Q3 no problem.



An update on Sean Lyon in Drag Radial. He yanked the transmission out of the car last night in an attempt to locate their converter problem. But that’s not all the issues the team is having. They also pulled out the Big Stuff 3 tune and put in their back up trying to fight a number of other things that they found last night. They also swapped out the turbo exhaust housing.



Things are going well over in the Mike Murillo camp. Team Murrillo has found the perfect combination of power and chassis setup for these weather conditions. They found a small exhaust leak this morning, but nothing horrible. They are going to run the same set up in the car that propelled the car to a 6.86 @ 222.74 MPH - putting them on the top of Qualifying order.



John Leslie’s 89 Mustang has had some suspension problems, but they are currently sorting those out and moving on. For today, the team is going to tweak with the tune a little bit to see if they had get a little more MPH on their next pass. Going into today they were qualified 2nd, but they feel that the other competitors are going to be catching up - so they are going to run the car a lot harder today once eliminations begin.

[poweradmin]

Final Qualifying Results will be posted here shortly. For now, here are your #1 qualifiers going into Eliminations:

Top Qualifiers:

Factory Stock #1 - Tommy Godfrey 11.23 @ 119.05
Pro 10.5 #1 - Mike Murillo 6.81 @ 220.53
Super Street Outlaw #1 - John Urist 7.40 @ 197.34
EFI Renegade #1 - Dan Rawls 8.50 @ 165.41
Hot Street #1 - Robbie Blankenship 8.69 @ 155.65
Drag Radial #1 - Jason Lee 8.01 @ 175.13
Real Street - #1 - Tim Matherly 9.62 @ 145.63
Eibach Pure Street #1 - Mark Anderson 10.29 @ 130.70

[poweradmin]

Here are notes from Round 1 of Eliminations:

Pro 10.5



Really odd round. Big time shocker here as Conrad gets timed out by the TSI timing system for taking too long to get into the lights... he was bumping in as his side of the lights went dead. AJ Powell went 7.22 @ 195 to take the win. Next, it was Neal and Monson lined up... Neal also taking a long time to get in, and then Neal's car died. Monson goes 7.25 at 194 mph.



Dan Millen who had trouble getting down the track earns fellow "ex" NMRA Super Street Outlaw driver Mike Murillo. Millen does a nasty burnout and his car won't back up. His crew desperately tries to pull the car back as apparently his reverse is broken. A crew member dives in the car, but it's too no avail. Mikey has a single, and Millen is disappointed. Tough break for the local racer.

Super Street Outlaw



Time for the freak show, and John Urist, the freakiest of the bunch, gets a single. Urist has a good looking run and goes 7.43 at 196.6 mph. His car kind of bobbled at the 60-foot mark, but he corrected. Urist just backed up the MPH record and ET record with his 7.40 in qualifying. Tuten and Huspen are up next, and Huspen can't get off the line... Tuten goes 7.43 and it's official - there is a now a very serious player in Super Street Outlaw and a real challenger to Urist. Johnny Mac's burnout is very short and doesn't generate much smoke, some are wondering if he got the tires hot enough. He is taking on Barber's drag radial ride racing SSO. Mac goes straight and clean, and runs a 7.61. The final pair of cars feature Burndown Don Burton and local racer Mark Southwell. Burton carries the tires past the 100-foot mark, makes a slight move to the wall, corrects and cards a 7.56 @ 189 to end the round over Southwell.

[poweradmin]

Drag Radial - No real upsets in Round 1 eliminations. Dave Guy, running the turbocharged 5.4L Modular engine, ripped an 8.02 to give notice to the rest of the class. Who is helping Guy this weekend? None other than multi-time champion Johnny "K" Kolivas.

Factory Stock

Jay Dold just rolled through the beams in the left lane, giving the win to John Leslie. Jim St. Charles got this one, defeating Louis Sylvester with an 11.30. Matt Amrine took on Brian Marr's modular powered entry. Marr got a slight jump at 60-foot, but Amrine drove away with another 11.30. Zane Reed and Jeremy Taylor squared off, and Taylor went an 11.38 to take the victory over the #9 qualifier Zane Reed. Godfrey would get a bye run as the #1 qualifier with a 11.23. He had a little bobble on the line, with a disappointing 11.74 at 117 mph. They are going to need to get that straightened out for Round 2.

Renegade

Rawls went .009 along with an 8.51 to take the victory so the #1 qualfier would march on. Bart Tobener smacks heads with the Sutton Alton Clements car, and in a bit of hearbreak, Clements engages the transbrake as the car rolls into the lights, and the car rocks violently. Perhaps due to that, his reaction time is over 1 second, and his faster ET is wasted as Bart takes the win with 8.62. Finally, Larry Hourcle broke, giving Brian Mitchell the competition bye. Black tracking down track, Mitchell clicks it just past half track.

Hot Street

Max Gross goes 8.75 at 151 mph taking the win over Don Bowles's Maverick who went a 8.86 at 154 mph. The mph is impressive for Bowles, and if he can get the first 100-feet right, he should be a real player with the old school Ford. Ben Mens was broke, so Bob Hanlon had a bye run. Hanlon's ride strated to go up on the bumper - he pedaled it, short-shifted, and dumped a 9.0. There was then another single, as Robbie Blankenship just shut the car off after taking the green.

Hi guys, a reminder about our PHOTO GALLERIES. They are online for Saturday and chock full of photos. Visit our Saturday Photo Galleries today to see photos like this updated all day today.

[poweradmin]

Pro Outlaw 10.5



AJ Powell takes on Jim Monson's '87 Mustang. Powell in first, and Powell never comes up on RPM... Monson takes the win with a 7.18 at 196 mph - his best run of the weekend.. When Powell finally did leave, he took a hard move to the wall. Murillo with another bye run, and just crosses the line. The final is going to be Murillo and Monson.

Also, making exhibition runs is Keith Neal and Conrad Scary. Neal carries the wheels hard and gets up on the bars and then lifts. Scary goes 6.88 at 202 mph to show they are back in business. They're out this weekend, but maybe next race!

Super Street Outlaw



It's a battle of the ProChargers as Urist and Johnny Mac duel in the second round of Super Street Outlaw. Urist picks the right lane, and leaves on Johnny.. they are door to door at half track, and he barely takes the win 7.46 to 7.48. Meeting Urist will either be Burndown or Chris Tuten - turbo versus nitrous Big Block. Let's see who goes in first... neither wants to stage. It's been about 20 seconds so far and neither will flip the top bulb. Tuten goes in first.... the Burton waits about 5 seconds, and they are both in. Burton goes hard on the bars, but Tuten is red. The mind games worked, and Tuten throws away another 7.44 to Burton's 7.48. It was a .004 red. Ouch.

Drag Radial



Bob Kurgan gave Ken Ewer a beating on the tree, leaving way out in front, and running just quick enough to take the win, with an 8.41 beating an 8.26!



Disaster struck in Round 2, as Dave Guy crashed hard into the wall, spinning to the right at about 1,000 feet. It looked as if there was some fluid on the track, no report as to whether it was engine damage, coolant, or transmission. You could see the look on his team's face -- this was a car that was on the verge on being only the second 7-second BFG Drag Radial mustang in history.

We're back under way now, as Jason Lee the #1 qualifier in Drag Radial gets a bye run. He's in the same lane that Guy crashed in -- not sure why. Perhaps he's got confidence in the track crew. Lee leaves soft but pours the power on down track... then lifts.. he's got the information that he needs.

Factory Stock



Jeremy Taylor and Jim St. Charles are next up. Charles wins with a 11.30 at 120 mph. Tommy Godfrey and Matt Amrine square off.... Godfrey in second... and has a great 60-foot, but he's late. Godfrey goes down and Amrine takes the win with a major upset. #1 qualifier is gone. John Leslie Jr. has a competition single, nice launch and crisp gear exchanges. Leslie advances with a 11.30 at 118. What is it about 11.30s?

[Andrew Casselberry]

In the Outlaw 10.5 final, "local boy" Jim Monson from Brighton, Michigan will face Texan Mike Murillo. In preparing for the final, Monson checked the computer for run data and was excited to race the legend. Murillo did not make a pass in the semis because he is saving the motor for the finals. Murillo's twin turbo terror tweaked a rocker arm during his round one win over Dan Millen.



Robbie Blankenship will face Bob Kurgan in the Hot Street semi-final. Robbie did not make a full pass in the last round as he changed a cylinder head on his Hot Street naturally aspirated 400 c.i. Ford.



Heading into the finals, John Urist's crew checked the spark plugs and performed routine maintenance on what has been a consistently fast Super Street Outlaw Mustang.

Here are some brief notes from the 3rd and 4th Rounds.

Pure Street

Ryan Hecox took on Steve Gifford in the semis. Both bring the revs up, but it was Hecox with an easy win after Gifford breaks a U-Joint on the line, and only move a few inches before the team was called up to push him back. Mark Anderson advanced.

Real Street

Jim Breese lined up with Dave Ginter in the semi's. Both cars left with huge wheel stands, but in the end it didn't matter after Ginter red light. Jim never looked back and ran his car to a 9.70 putting him up against his teammate Tim Matherly once again.

Hot Street

Bob Hanlon drew the defending camp Ron Blankenship and his 2004 Mustang. Blankenship ran a 8.72 to Hanlon's 8.78 but gave up the race on the tree to face Max Gross - who cruised to a 8.73 single.

Renegade

Dan Rawls has a single into the finals.

Brian Mitchell came in with the number three qualifying spot and took on Bart Tobener. Mitchell red lit, sending Bart to the final round.

Drag Radial

Jason Lee pulled up next to Bob Kurgan. Kurgan has been fighting gremlins all weekend, but his last run tell us the he got a handle on it now. That being said, Lee dropped an 8.09 on Kurgan, and his 8.20-ish run wasn't enough. Enzo had a bye run.

Factory Stock

John Leslie took on Matt Amrine for the right to go to the finals. Armine red lit, and St. Charles went on a bye run.

[poweradmin]

Drag Radial



Although he didn't do it with flair or a record e.t., Jason Lee, the quickest Drag Radial NMRA car in the World, would take Enzo Pecchini out via red light. As in Enzo's -.300 light. Lee just coasted to a 17-second run and the victory.

Pro 10.5



It would be Murillo's twin turbo LX and local racer Jim Monson's single Turbo Mustang squaring off in the finals. Despite a huge e.t. advantage, Murillo's team was very careful to get Mike in the groove to ensure the driver's safety and the win. Monson, to his credit, wasn't giving up an inch.



At the strip - as expected - it was all Murillo, who carded a 6.82 at 220.52 mph and have about 3 car lengths on Monson. This is the second victory in a row for Murillo who moves to the top of the points standings for the first time in over 5 years. Monson ran a 7.30 at 194.88 mph.

Factory Stock



Hard work and determination mean something in the NMRA. Nobody embodies that better than John Leslie, who has raced for almost 7 years without an actual race victory. He defeated Jim St. Charles of Arcadia, Indiana with a .082 light and a 11.29 over Charles 11.33.



John Leslie, his fans, and team, have been waiting for this win for a long, long time. And finally, the time came. Time to celebrate boys and girls - you've earned it.

Pure Street



Mark Anderson and Ryan Hecox eye'd each other warily in the staging lanes. High-revving Kuntz horsepower would do battle with RGR-racing engines build Modular oats, to find out which Mustang was the top horse tonight. Anderson, as many cars did in the tower lane, picked the wheels way up on the launch, and carried himself to victory over the second silver Mustang tonight. Anderson ran a 10.26 to Hecox's 10.38.

Hot Street

It was Bangin' Bob Hanlin and Max Gross in the finals of Hot Street, the all natural high winding small block no power adder class. Max went red in the final round, giving the win to the gear bangin Hanlon. You can see in the picture below Max is way out on Bob. It was a -.037 red to Bob's .047. It would have been a great race also - Gross went 8.748 to Hanlon's 8.758.




5.0 Mustang Real Street



It was again the MV Performance show in 5.0 Mustang Real Street. While we like the variety of new cars in the finals, nobody can deny the wheels-up action of the team of Matherly and Breeze. Almost every run the pair sky the skinnies at least 3 feet resulting in applause from the crowd. In this match up, Breeze got the better wheelstand, but Matherly - the teacher - schooled his student with a victory advantage of over 3 tenths at the stripe, 9.59 at a stunning 146.05 mph to 9.90 at 129.

Super Street Outlaw



Justin Burchim from JPC lines up his team mate Don Burton carefully in the final round.



In Super Street Outlaw it would once again come down to John Urist and Don Burton. Burton and Urist left together, but Burton experienced problems around 60-feet and Urist cruised to his second victory of the year -- well on his way to his unprecedented 5th championship in the NMRA. Urist ran 7.48 at 194.04.

EFI Renegade



Dan Rawls has been taking the Renegade class by storm the last two years. A gentle giant, Rawls has horsepower to spare and the honest straight-forward attitude of many a champion. However, Bart Tobener matches his championship intensity with his own championship experience. It would be nitrous vs supercharger, as Rawls got the best of the transaction with a .026 light and a 8.42 at 165.32 mph to Bart Tobener's off-pace run.