NMRA Bradenton, FL 2009 - Saturday Coverage

[Tom@StangTV]

Everyone has finished waking up and are now getting their cars ready for the second round of qualifying and the first round of eliminations. Its a cool morning today, much like yesterday. Hopefully the temperatures will stay down the rest of the day. Lots of teams just prepping their cars, check out some of the morning’s happenings from the pits before we begin race coverage.

Matt Bell in the Drag Radial class, who we spoke with last night, is having a better day today. After making a few key adjustments under the moon last night, the team says they are better prepared today and look for them to bring down their time from yesterday.



Robert Blankenship is still feeling good after qualifying number one and setting the Hot Street record yesterday. The team spend some of the night and morning rebuilding their car after being torn-down following the record setting run. According to Robert, “We passed the tear-down with flying colors and we should be able to back it up no problem.” Robert needs to run at least a 8.70 today to back up yesterday’s run and lock down the record. Look for him to give it all he has.



Adam Burns is currently sitting at the lower half of the Drag Radial qualifying grid but expect that to change. They ran a 9.271 yesterday, pretty good when you figure that yesterday was the first time down the track with the new engine and turbo set up. The teams says they have all the bugs worked out of it now and to look for them to jump up to the top three in standings today.



Dan Rawls is staying on top of things. Even though he is sitting on top of Renegade class in both top speed and lowest ET categories, we found the team checking the travel of the front end. They said the car had a little more in it to go faster - it’s just up to the track and how well it is today.

[mark@stangtv]

The internet at the track has been painful. Finally, some updates.



During round two qualifying, Conrad Scarry took on Mike Murillo. Murillo was spun slightly while Scarry was on the bars until the eighth mile, which it settled down. As it looked like Conrad had straightened the car out, the Mustang cut hard to the right wall, barely missing Murillo and slamming the wall hard. “My car pushed over hard, I think Conrad clipped my parachute”, said Murillo. Conrad was ok, but the champion winning Mustang has seen better days.



John Urist took over the number one spot with a 7.433 @ 193.79 mph for a solid run. Don Burton made it out to the track and made a 1000 foot hit to roll into the Super Street Outlaw field. Perry Santani’s 4-eye came off the line and was popping hard. Perry ended up on the chip for 4.5 seconds and promises to have it corrected for round three.



Chris Little in his Renegade combination nosed over after launching. The good cause being the coupler to the throttle body that puked out the bottom of the car. Chris is still sitting near the bottom of the list in Renegade. Dan Rawls stayed in the number one position with a lower 8.405 @ 163.22 mph.



Robbie Blankenship was going for broke in the second round to try to back up his Hot Street record with a different shock setup. Robbie ended up spinning and decided to go back to the original setup. He still sits in the number one spot.



Mark Anderson managed to make his way from the middle of the Pure Street ladder to the number one position with a 10.237 @ 129.88 mph. Less than a half a second separates ten cars in the Pure Street field.

[Tom@StangTV]

We found Bart Tobner changing some plugs on his Fox body. Turns out the last run his car was only running on 7 cylinders. Part of one of the plugs had broken off and such resulted in a no firing condition in that cylinder. Look for him to be improving on his time next run once he has his Mustang running on all eight cylinders again.





Tim Matherly had a frustrating run. He said the clutch starting slipping right off the line and never stopped. In true Tim Matherly form though, he never lifted and still managed to run a 9.932. Needless to say the team us swapping out the clutch and has five more waiting on the truck if need for another one comes up.



Rough night for Alton Clements, the car burned an exhaust seat and spent all night correcting the problem. They were lucky enough to find a local machine shop and got the problem corrected. They also went about changing the plugs and plan on upping the boost for the next round.



A disappointing run for Michael Washington. The Glen Burne native had an issue when the car nosed over during the run. When they got back to the pits the team found that the blow off valve was stuck open. When we checked in with them they were trying to service the blow off valve, but if they aren’t able to fix it they plan on by passing it for the next run.



Don Bowles is used to driving ROUSH cars that you set straight and mash it, but his new car is proving to be more of a challenge. He has been fighting spinning tires all weekend on every run he has taken his Hot Street Maverick down the track. To try and correct the problem the team took one round of shock out, added 3/8 in travel to one of front shocks. The next run the car stood up on the rear tires a little too much before heading toward the wall. After coming what seemed to be inching from the wall, Don let out and abouted the run. For the next run, they will be looking to find a middle sweet spot between the wheels not touching the ground and shaking all over the track.



Brian Tuten wasn’t able to finish his run in his Renegade Mustang. The car nosed over around the 330’ mark and was stopped on the side of the track by the 1/8th mile. Brian and the team think that something in the transmission broke during the burnout before the run. They are hoping it is only something small such as a broken input shaft and not something catastrophic inside the transmission and that they will be able to make the next round.



Sonny Biggs’ run could have went a lot worst than it did. The new spec turbo in the Drag Radial class has been taking a long time to spool for the team. As a result, the longer amount of time the car has to sit on the trans-brake, the hotter it gets. With no air moving over the trans-cooler, the transmission and more importantly the transmission fluid got so hot that it melted the lines going the to the transmission cooler. Just as a precaution, the team is swapping out the transmission and obviously the lines that connect it to the cooler.

[mark@stangtv]

Turbonetics Pro Outlaw 10.5 Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 1069 Mike Murillo 6.857 224.04 224.04
2 1 Conrad Scarry 7.054 209.64 209.64
3 8 Keith Neal 7.269 195.95 195.95
4 1540 Dwayne James 7.907 184.27 184.27
5 1047 Ruben Tetsoshvili 8.012 180.43 180.43
6 1397 AJ Powell 8.224 186.83 186.83
7 1010 Dan Millen 10.031 132.97 132.97

ProCharger S-Street Outlaw Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 1 John Urist 7.433 193.79 193.79
2 2787 John MacDonald 7.529 193.38 193.38
3 2023 Chris Tuten 7.769 173.04 173.04
4 2151 Don Burton 8.502 112.66 112.66
5 2142 Billy Driscoll 8.512 168.09 168.09
6 2221 Perry Santini 11.467 162.19 162.19

Diablo Sport EFI Renegade Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 8 Dan Rawls 8.405 163.22 163.22
2 6 Brian Mitchell 8.501 160.97 160.97
3 4 Alton Clements 8.742 156.41 156.41
4 4401 Chris VanGilder 8.812 154.58 154.58
5 4214 Bart Tobner 8.817 140.49 140.49
6 4254 Chris Beary 9.007 150.40 153.60
7 4001 Chris Little 9.02O 151.08 151.08
8 3 Brian Tuten 13.999 52.85 52.85

Edelbrock Hot Street Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 1 Robert Blankenship 8.634 151.74 151.74
2 3072 Max Gross 8.691 152.90 153.19
3 3 Ben Mens 8.823 152.12 152.12
4 3131 Timothy Eichhorn 9.159 146.65 146.65
5 3671 Don Bowles 9.721 135.60 135.60

BF Goodrich Drag Radial Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 10000 Sean Lyon 8.014 181.26 181.26
2 9 Enzo Pecchini 8.292 171.49 174.14
3 5 Jason Lee 8.318 172.08 172.08
4 10136 Matt Bell 8.456 169.61 169.61
5 10353 Orson Johnson 8.53O 164.98 164.98
6 7 Pete Johnson 8.564 167.53 167.53
7 10983 Chris Bussell 8.594 161.17 161.17
8 10 Bill Wolf 8.703 161.57 161.57
9 4 Bob Kurgan 8.853 171.62 171.62
10 10366 Adam Jude 9.271 168.13 168.13
11 10990 Sonny Biggs 10.71O 165.59 165.59

5.0 Mustang Real Street Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 3 Jim Breese 9.65O 141.11 141.11
2 6 Dave Ginter 9.65O 140.42 140.42
3 2 Tim Matherly 9.932 142.49 142.49
4 8082 Paul Alfeo 10.08O 132.84 132.84
5 8910 Paul Wiley 10.211 137.15 137.15
6 4 Michael Washington 10.473 121.88 121.88

Eibach Springs Pure Street Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 6 Mark Anderson 10.237 129.88 129.88
2 5119 Jimmy Wilson 10.352 125.06 125.83
3 5007 Steve Gifford 10.393 132.58 132.58
4 1 Brandon Alsept 10.418 128.88 128.88
5 8 Eric Burkhart 10.434 129.64 129.64
6 5112 David Hill 10.47O 127.10 127.10
7 5300 Shawn Johnson 10.48O 128.09 128.09
8 5137 Alan Hill 10.637 125.06 126.13
9 5065 Drew Lyons 10.852 111.34 111.34
10 10 Shawn Hansen 12.241 82.03 82.03

ACT Factory Stock Q2
Position Car # Driver Name ET MPH Fastest MPH
1 6 Carlos Sobrino 11.488 116.51 116.51
2 2 John Leslie Jr. 11.51O 116.97 117.15
3 6117 Brian Marr 11.612 115.45 115.45
4 6290 Greg Novac 11.837 115.13 115.13
5 10 Alan Cann 11.85O 115.20 115.20
6 6852 Jim St Charles 11.907 117.63 117.63
7 4 Jay Dold 13.23O 72.34 72.34
8 1 Tommy Godfrey 13.352 65.80 65.80

[mark@stangtv]

AJ Powell made it straight down the track this time and kept it off the bars. Though still far from the number one Pro 10.5 position, is still a success in their eyes with a 7.257 @ 188.36 mph. Keith Neal crossed the center lane from the left to right, aborted the pass and cruised down the track. Murillo stayed in the pits since he sits comfortably in first place in Pro 10.5.



Bowles made it straight down the track in his Hot Street Maverick to an 8.84 @ 150.22. Robbie Blankenship needed a 8.720 to back up his 8.634 record pass from yesterday and if you guessed right, he ran a 8.720 @ 150.88 mph. A spread of .25 covers the naturally aspirated field.



Jason Lee ran the fastest Drag Radial pass in NMRA competition with a 8.01 @ 175.13 mph. Not to forget Sean Lyon 8.014 @ 181.26 mph, which the best that car has ran and also huge on the mile-per-hour.

[Tom@StangTV]

Matt Bell’s weekend almost ended when his Drag Radial Mustang slammed the wall following his run. Bell said that the at the end of his run he pull the chutes, which deployed but didn’t open. In a panic Bell begun braking trying to slow the car down. It was then that the chute finally opened, but wiped the car sideways when it did. The car spun just kissing the wall before sliding across the track and backing it into the wall. Thankfully most of the damage was cosmetic and nothing catastrophic.



Troubles continued for Brian Tuten. While he was able to run a 9.025, the team is now chasing a water leak from somewhere under the hood of his car. Thankfully none of it made it under the tires, but not knowing where the water is coming from means that until they find it, its bound to happen.



Paul Wiley put his Mustang up and on the back bumper causing it to slam hard when it came down. The car continued down the track and it had appeared that nothing had broke. They were going over the car and found that when the car came back down it shifted something in the drivetrain. While the car was running fine, one of the weights under the car was now rubbing on the driveshaft. So instead of spending all day to sort out what was bent and what wasn’t, the team simply moved the weight and says they will be more than ready to make the next round.



Chris Van Gilder had the issue of his car running on only 7 cylinders - the cause, a pinched wire when the team had installed the transmission the day before. After popping the wire out and taking care of some minor electrical repair work they will be ready for the next round of racing tomorrow.

[mark@stangtv]

Chris Little and company has had a tough time today. When Chris rolled up for his run, the Bradenton crew noticed a puddle under the car that would later be traced back to a blown seal on the front of the transmission. The crew was sourcing parts and will have it ready for tomorrow’s qualifying.



Orson Johnson had an interesting failure. The V-band clamp came off his intake pipe and took out his wiring to the boost controller. Needless to say, no wiring to the boost controller and a loose intake pipe caused the Drag Radial Mustang to run poorly, spitting some flames on the top end. Luckily the fix was cheap.

[Chevelle Rob]

15 second winner - Chris parisi



14 second winner - Dorinde Shaney



13 second winner - Nick Carmack



12 second winner Ryan Kelly



11 second winner - Keith Calitri



Runner Up - Blair Brannock



True Street Winner - Chris Escobar