On June 16, 2017, legendary valvetrain manufacturer Dan Jesel of Jesel Valvetrain Innovation was awarded the NHRA’s Lifetime Achievement Award at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Jesel has spent 37 years researching, developing, and improving valvetrain configurations for dozens of engine types. Along with his brother, Wayne Jesel–who also received the Lifetime Achievement Award on the same day–Dan has built a career, and extremely successful company, by providing engineering solutions for the valvetrains used on a wide variety of racing engines.
In addition to designing and manufacturing their shaft rocker designs, the company has also put their engineering might behind the development of camshaft belt drives, keyway-guided and wheel-guided roller lifters, and other items like large-diameter camshafts and double-roller overhead camshaft followers.
Their products are widely-used by top race teams in NHRA Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock, where there is no room for failure or bargain components. The Jesel designs, top-quality machining centers–and machinists to operate them–have combined with the company’s use of superior materials to create just some of the reasons behind the company’s successes over the years.
The Jesel Custom Shop is able to satisfy demands for custom valvetrain components for all of today’s cylinder head configurations by offering custom setup and machining capabilities to its customers for all of their custom machining needs. Its capabilities help to expand the company’s influence throughout all forms of motorsports including motorcycle racing, offshore powerboat racing, and NASCAR among others.
In addition, at Dan Jesel’s direction, the company is also hard at work on developing a clean-sheet racing engine design that is not hindered by sanctioning body rulebooks. This engine program is intended to eliminate the compromises found in production-based engines that were designed for non-racing applications. If its capabilities are anything like the rest of Jesel’s products, the results will be worth waiting for.
The EngineLabs team congratulates Mr. Jesel on this fine achievement, and wishes him much success going forward!