Your Agent (ADRL) reminds everyone to tune in to the Versus network this coming Sunday, Nov. 8, at 3 p.m., for the broadcast of the recently completed, championship-deciding National Guard ADRL Speedtech Battle for the Belts from the Texas Motorplex at Ennis, TX. The 2009 Speedtech Battle for the Belts was punctuated, of course, by Pro Extreme contender Jason Hamstra’s miraculous escape from injury in a devastating high-speed accident, but in the end it was all about the National Guard ADRL’s newly crowned world champions. If you miss any of the National Guard ADRL airings on Versus, you also can visit the new ADRL Videos On Demand player. It will provide online versions of all National Guard ADRL TV shows in their entirety, plus exclusive interviews and bonus features, such as a video from each class that depicts every elimination run so far this season.

Last weekend Titan Motorsports competed in Ennis Texas for the ADRL Battle of the Belts. We were in the #2 spot in points, and we matched up against the winner of the #7 and #8 points holder. Spiro Pappas (#8) won his first battle and was now our opponent Friday night in our first run. Spiro is one of only two cars in the “3 second club” in XTF, and we knew his team would be a handful. Both cars made great runs, but Pappas’4.01 @ 190 mph edged out our 4.02 @ 182 mph. It put an early end to our night which was disappointing for the whole team after working so hard to stay in the #2 points position all season. Spiro went on to win the Battle of the Belts form the #8 spot. Congrats.

The ADRL Battle for the Belts is counted toward the first race of the season, which directly follows. Our 4.02 run from Friday night now counted toward our qualifying for the first race of the season Saturday, so that left us in the #3 qualifying position going into the first round. Here we raced Tony Wilson and ran a solid 4.05 which was enough for the win and lane choice in the next round. In round 2 we faced Dan Millen. We knew we had to put together a strong run, and banged out a 4.01 @ 183.7 mph. It was good enough to advance to the next round, but we did not get the lane choice going in to the semi finals. We would be matched up against Spiro Pappas again in the semi finals and they were making great runs on Saturday as well. Spiro had some mechanical problems in the second round and no one knew if he would make it to the staging lanes. We waited as the Pappas team worked to fix their issues. At the last minute they pulled their car to the lanes and lined up for the race. Whatever they did, they did it right, because Pappas made a career best run of 3.92 @ 193 mph which was unmatched by us or anyone in XTF over the weekend. Chuck Ulsch did manage to beat Spiro Pappas on a hole-shot it the finals though. The elusive 3 second pass that we had hoped for slipped away from us again so we will have to wait to get that early in the 2010 season. The next ADRL race will take place March 12-13th 2010, at Houston Raceway Park, in Baytown Texas. Look for the Titan Team to be out in full force. We’ll see you at the races!

Tune in to the Versus network this Sunday, Sep. 27 at 3 p.m., for the broadcast of the recently completed National Guard ADRL Flowmaster Dragstock VI from Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina. This event featured several record-setting individual performances, as well as the quickest fields ever in three of the five National Guard ADRL pro classes, including the first all three-second field in Pro Nitrous. If you’re unsure where Versus might be on your local channel listing, check out the handy Versus locator here at ADRL.us. Just click on the “Watch ADRL on VERSUS” button near the top left of the homepage, then insert your zip code into the appropriate box. A list of service providers and channels specific to your area will pop up. It’s that simple. If you miss any of the National Guard ADRL airings on Versus, you also can visit the new ADRL Videos On Demand player. It will provide online versions of all National Guard ADRL TV shows in their entirety, plus exclusive interviews and bonus features, such as a video from each class that depicts every elimination run so far this season.

What an incredible weekend of racing! Not only was it a record crowd, but there was a great turn out of racers as well. Friday we had 2 rounds of qualifying, the first run was aborted, but the next run we were able to better our best E.T. yet, running a 4.009@181.45. This E.T. was good enough to hold the #1 qualifying spot, something that we were really looking to lock down after having qualified in the #2 seat for the last 4 events. When Saturday morning rolled around, we decided to run round #3 of qualifying to gather as much data as possible. After the run, our race team decided that it was time to put a fresh motor in so that we would be ready for eliminations. Unfortunately for us, the fresh motor had an issue in one of the cylinders, essentially making the car a 5cyl engine. With no time to spare, eliminations started, and thanks to our #1 qualifying spot, we were able to request to run in the first pair in the XTF class. We figured if we won the round we would have more time to fix the car this way, and so we did, running a 4.19 against Sandy Wilkins 4.33. The team definitely had their work cut out for them. They needed to swap the head of the motor in between elimination rounds, and had very little time to do so. But, with a little help from the rain,  the event got delayed an extra 45min to an hour, and we had just enough time to make round 2 of eliminations against Joel Bayless. On this run, the car got out of shape, but Gary White’s ballsy driving lead to another W, taking the win by 0.0644 seconds (approximately 17 feet), running a 4.36@173 against Joel’s 4.41@176.

Round 3 against Carlton was the stuff movies are made out of. Carlton normally cuts perfect lights, and he said the sound from the 2 step on the Scion threw him off a bit. Gary treed him badly, so bad in fact that we lost all boost @ the 330′ and had the slowest E.T. yet still won the round. The breakdown of the run went like this: Gary R/T .022 E.T 4.17@173  to Carlton’s R/T .124  4.13@176. Gary White’s margin of victory: 0.0561 seconds (approximately 15 feet).
 
The finals against Chuck Ulsch were pretty much a repeat of our last visit to the finals, the Scion loses traction for a bit and can’t hold the win against Chuck’s powerful machine, which set a new speed record during the pass. White has one ADRL win in three finals, and Ulsch has one win in two finals. Ulsch had the starting line advantage and White had the lead at 60 feet, but after that it is all Ulsch. Ulsch’s mph here backs up his 204.01 mph from qualifying for the new speed record. Chuck Ulsch’s incremental times: 60ft-1.058 sec., 330ft-2.766.

Congrats to Chuck Ulsch for resetting the speed record again, and winning the event. Thanks again to everyone that came by the pits to show their support! We were really hoping to hit 3’s this weekend, but that will just have to wait for Texas. We’ll see you at the races!

This weekend team Titan is participating in the 19th annual Fast Fours & Roteries Jamboree at Willowbank Raceway, in Queensland Australia. The team departed Tuesday on the 20+ hour flight “Down Under”, and arrived Thursday (14 hours ahead). The racing doesn’t start until the 29th but we have begun testing and have a few spy shots form the track.

This past weekend, Titan Motorsports raced at National Trail Raceway in Columbus Ohio, for the ADRL Ohio Drags III.

We had spent the last week and a half prior to the event at Rick Jones Racecars, making sure the car was ready to go for this race after the wreck we had in St. Louis two weeks prior. The car left Rick Jones’ on Wednesday, August 19, and we were unable to test the car before Ohio. We had to make some adjustments to the car after being repaired so we were unsure how the car would react.

ADRL has recently eliminated the normal Friday test session so the first run since the repairs would be the 1st qualifying round of the Columbus race. The car left the starting line fine but started to drift towards the left around 60 ft out. In the second round of qualifying, we had better results. Despite the car snaking around between the center line and the wall, the car still made a solid 4.09 run at 179.5 mph. This put us in the #1 qualifier position for a while until Chuck Ulsch took it away in round 3. We did however manage to maintain the #2 qualifier position. We once again had another solid qualifying effort. That makes 4 races in a row we have qualified in the #2 spot.

In the first round of eliminations we were able to overtake our opponent, even though we had a less than stellar run. The car had begun to slide around in the middle of the racetrack and driver Gary White had to lift off of the throttle a few times to keep the car under control. The car slowed to a 4.5 second run, but the car in the other lane had problems as well, and we were able to advance.

In the second round we were matched against the #4 points position holder Todd Moyer. “This was one of the wildest runs this year” claimed Titan owner Nero Deliwala. Once again, at about 60 feet out, the car moved out to the left. We had a .990 second 60 ft, but the car had drifted so far left that Gary had to lift off of the throttle to save the car from going over the center line. Moyer also had problems and lifted the front tires 4 feet off the ground halfway down the track. The Scion ran a 4.54 second pass, but was edged out by Moyer’s quick recovery and 4.52 second pass. In the shuffle, Moyer damaged the engine when the rear tires unloaded from the wheelie. In a show of great sportsmanship, despite being handed a defeat, team Titan, along with Grahm from team Pappas chipped in to help Moyer get ready for the next round.

We will be testing before Rockingham to make sure the car is 100%. As the past races have shown, the ADRL XTF class is immensely competitive and anything less than 100% just won’t do. Chuck Ulsch proved this by once again breaking another record into the 3’s, running a 3.982! What may be even more impressive is the fact that he backed up his run with a 3.99 at 201.28 mph! Not only was Ulsch the first in the 3’s on a 10.5” tire, but now the first to break the 200 mph barrier. Many of the Pro Extreme guys are not even hitting that mph in the 1/8th. We love the level that the XTF class has risen to and hope to continue our success in the class as well. We’ll see you at the races!

Here is some footage of this past weekends crash in St. Louis.

It’s been another exciting Titan Motorsports/ADRL weekend. We raced this weekend’s ADRL Hardees’s Gateway Drags II, in Madison Illinois, and what a race it was. In the first round of qualifying, Gary and the Titan Scion kicked it off with a bang, putting down a strong 4.063 @ 176.28 mph, before engine failure. Even though this run was good enough to grab the # 1 qualifying position, Friday night’s indent was just the beginning of Titans adversity-filled weekend.

On Saturday, the crew had their hands full replacing the blown engine. The spare was uncovered, and quickly dropped into the chassis. Everything was bolted down and fingers were crossed. The car was ready to go. In the third round of qualifying Gary was all set to square off with Tony Bischoff. “We wanted to make sure things were good (with the engine) and we were just going to make a 330′ hit to make sure we were ready for round 1″ said team owner Nero Deliwala. As the cars took off, all was well. Gary made the hit, and then shut the car down. Everything looked good with the qualifier turned test run, until Bischoff started to lose control of his car half way down the track. All of a sudden the car came across the lane, all four tires in the air, and began to roll. Gary, with split second decision making, narrowly escaped the path of the careening car, but ended up putting the Scion into the wall in the process. Both drivers were a little banged up, but relatively uninjured in the crash. According to driver Gary White, had they have not let off when they did, he would have certainly t-boned into Tony, possibly causing severe injury to both drivers.

Well, now the team is back to square one: banged up car, race on the line. Most teams would have probably called it a day at that point, but not Team Titan. Team Titan with Rick Jones, Rickie Jones, Joe Brown of RJ Race Cars, equipment from Tim McKamis and welding support from Kelly Campbell allowed the re-construction to begin. We had to duct tape the entire front nose of the car, as it was totally mangled. We also used fiberglass and resign to help strengthen it. The fuel cell bar was also bent way out of shape. We tried to straighten the fuel cell bar with a tow strap, but the first 3 attempts didn’t work and about pulled the car off the pro jacks. So we had to drop the car on the ground, Gary got in and held the brakes, we held the car back and brought our Mule (tow vehicle) and used it to be weight/leverage to straighten it. The mule started moving, so we had to hold its brakes. Slowly the bar started to straighten. We needed to move it like 6″ and it moved 1-1/2” so that was about 1hr in and we weren’t getting very far. We went and Robert Patrick had an acetylene torch and we had to cut all the wiring out of the way, remove any fuel that were around and heat up the bar. We also had to remove the fire bottle because the bracket that held it was bent, so when we pulled that out we didn’t pin it and it went off in the pits. It was an interesting situation to say the least. So we had to grab our spare and off we went trying to get it fitted back onto the car. Finally we re-wired the car, checked it out, checked nose fitment (a few zesus’s were busted) and got it working. We then did our standard turn around procedure and found one of the rear Mickey Thompson 10.5’s were cut from the accident. So our 2nd set went on the car. We then checked all the electronics and fired it up, and made sure the car ran good. The car looked like hell, but she was ready to roll.

In the first round of eliminations, we ran against Jason Wilson. Gary was able to put down a 4.145 @ 179 for the win. In the second round, the team was pitted against Jeff Dickey. Dickey ran a respectable 4.181 @ 177.14, but was not able to best the Scion’s 4.107 @ 179.88. In the semi-finals we were up against Billy Glidden. With nearly identical reaction times the cars were off and running. In the end, the huge displacement of Glidden’s engine stole the show with a 4.093 @ 175.78 mph to our 4.128 @ 177.14.

Wow what a weekend! Despite the tremendous setbacks, the team really pulled it together this weekend. We hope to have the car back in tip top shape for the next race in Ohio. Until then, we will be doing our share of tinkering and testing. Please join us on August 21-22 as we race the Ohio Drags III, at National Trail Raceway. We’ll see you at the races!

This weekend, Titan Motorsports will be participating in the ADRL Hardees’ Gateway Drags, at Gateway International Raceway. After laying down a team best of 4.056 @ 181.25 mph, briefly breaking the record at the US Drags II, Team Titan looks to make another finals appearance in St. Louis this coming weekend. The car has been running consistent these last few months, and now that #1 points position is in sight. Look for Titan to be throwing it down with the Big Blocks in XTF, this weekend in St. Louis. We’ll see you at the races!

Last weekend we participated in the ADRL US Drags II. After sorting out a few problems in testing, we were very optimistic about Friday night’s qualifying. “Friday night is always the best opportunity to make a good run in qualifying so we didn’t want to waste it” said crew chief Brett White. Indeed he was right, as Team Titan managed to make a career best run of 4.056 @ 181.25 mph.  That pass landed us in the #2 qualifying spot and also broke the national elapsed time record in the XTF class! 

On Saturday, we faced our first round opponent Randy Matlock.  First round was run during the heat of the day so track conditions were the worst we would face all weekend.  We made adjustments to soften the tune up to make sure we made a clean run. This turned out a 4.18 @ 177 mph which advanced us into the second round. 

In the second round we faced Dave Hance.  By this time the sun had begun to set and track conditions had started to get a little better.  We decided to try to creep up on the tune up just a little bit while still making sure we didn’t over power the race track.  The car responded really well to the small changes and ran a 4.072 @ 180 mph which backed up the 4.05 run. This set the national record at 4.056 for a few minutes before Chuck Ulsch reset the record again.

In the semi final round we were up against Joel Bayless. We were trying to keep the car consistent and managed to do just that, running another 4.07 @180 to win the round, and a chance to compete in the finals for the second time this season.

In the final race we were matched up with Chuck Ulsch, which proved to be somewhat of a David vs. Goliath scenario. Chuck has a brand new racecar with the most powerful motor in the class to this point and has been very tough to beat.  At the drop of the tree, the cars left the starting line with Gary posting a .123 reaction time and Chuck a .160 reaction time.  Both cars got really loose and slid around a lot in the middle of the track. Both cars were eventually corralled and we ended up running a 4.070 to Chucks 4.032.  In the end Chuck Ulsch came away the winner by .001 seconds. It was another tough break for the Titan crew, but the quick and consistent times has advanced Team Titan to the #2 points position at just past the half way mark in the season.