With the ADRL World Finals just weeks away, the crew at Titan Motorsports has been diligently working to ensure the car is prepared for the biggest race of the season. With only a 2 man crew, it’s good that we have sufficient time between races. But what about on race day? Will the two co-crew chiefs be able to handle the heat? Well let’s be honest, of course they can, they have been doing it all season. But just in case, we are flying in our secret weapon all the way from Wilkesboro, NC. Dalton McGuire is an Auto Body/Auto Mechanics major at the Wilkes Community College and will be our special guest to help assist the team as we compete in the ADRL World Finals V, in Ennis Texas. McGuire has been a fan of Titan Motorsports for some time now, and had a chance to meet with the team at the Rockingham event back in September. Dalton told us, “My passion is cars….I love anything to do with cars, working on them, driving them and just hanging out with others who share my passion. I have been a fan of Titan Motorsports for several years and coming to Rockingham and getting to hang out with the Titan team was great. The invitation to come to Texas and help Team Titan was a dream come true”. Well Dalton, if hanging around others who are passionate about cars is your thing, then the pits of Titan Motorsports is a good place to start. With years of experience under their belt, and the passion that only a White (Gary) can bring, we know you’ll feel right at home amongst XTF’s best.

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 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!

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!