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!