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It’s time for the second race of the newly-reorganized 2013 ADRL tour as the racers head to South Georgia Motorsports Park. Keep it tuned to DragZine Friday through Sunday as we will be bringing you all the action from both on and off the track.
Special thanks to our event coverage sponsor Mickey Thompson Tires. Check out their fine line of wheels and tires at www.mickeythompsontires.com.
Mike Castellana is running Pro Mod this year in NHRA and is here testing a new Jerry Bickel Camaro. It’s maiden voyage down the track was on Thursday and today he put up a nice 3.89 @ 194 MPH. The team is happy with that and will concentrate the rest of the weekend on the Pro Nitrous car which Mike is running in competition this weekend.
Team Goforth is here with it’s two car team running Extreme Pro Stock. I spoke with Brian Self about what’s going on for 2013. Cary Goforth is wearing the number one after winning the 2012 class championship making it two in a row for him. They have a pair of cars at Jerry Hass’s shop with are about six to eight weeks out which will be fitted with the new Camaro body from 5 Star.
Pete Berner has Jeff Perley on hand this weekend consulting on the Summit Racing Extreme Pro Stock Camaro, he is the crew chief for Jason Line and Greg Anderson who run NHRA Pro Stock. The Summit Racing Equipmet, Car Safe sponsored Camaro runs and 830 cubic inch Chevy built in house by Pete Berner. They had yet to make a hit today when I stopped by the pit.
Cale Aronson is back after ten months off after loosing an engine last year at Budds Creek. Aronson is sponsored by Shelby Performance Parts and picked up Vengance Racing as an associate sponsor this year along with Pro Stock Communications. He is just shaking the car down after the time off so far with the new engine. Cale has been doing some consulting with Jer Gervasi, VP of Shelby American Inc. in Las Vegas, Nevada. His fiancé Tinzy Smith handles the clutch setup on the car and has been marketing VHT candles since 2007 under the Clutch Girl brand and recently added some interesting gear head jewelry to the product line.
Jeff Prock is crew chief for Rick Corn who runs Top Sportsman with a new gen Hemi on nitrous, certainly a different combination as there are only two built by Indy Cylinder Heads for Rick. He was runner up to Marco Abruzzi in the season opener in Rockingham. The engine is fed by a set of Damn Best split carbs and Applied Nitrous Technology systems with good runs in the 4.19 zone on two kits.
Stanley Weiss Racing is here this weekend so I stopped by and had a chat with John Stanley who drives the car. They have made some small changes to the car including a new wing design after consulting with Garret Race Cars to cut drag on the car which resulted in a 209 MPH in testing. The team has a new sponsor on board for 2013 with Steel Dynamics Inc out of Pittsborough, Indiana. John made a nice 3.81 @ 201 pass this evening, the air isn’t so good this weekend but they will be quicker than the .81 in qualifying I’m sure.
Lester Johnson owns and drives this Procharged 55 Chevy based out of Cynthiana, Kentucky. Johnson normally runs the NHRA top Sportsman circuit and is attending his first ADRL event this weekend. He has owned the car for about a year and a half which was originally built by Steve Matukas. Lester’s son Andrew is also here this weekend running Top Dragster for a two car effort, the crew consists of Lester and Jennifer Johnson along with their son Andrew. Engines are built and maintained by Matt Hornbuckle from Performance Engineering and Machine. The team is self sponsored by Total Performance Solutions which is involved in factory automation and robotics. Andrew runs the same basic combo in the rail, a 4 link dragster from Spitzer, the only 4 link dragster in Top Sportsman competition from Spitzer.
Gene Hector runs this RJ Race Cars 63 Corvette in Pro Extreme with a small block from Alan Johnson. He got down today with a fine 3.64 in the Small Block Mafia ride after doing a lot of testing in 2012, this is their first ADRL event this year for the Big Springs, Texas based team.
I caught up with Ashley Owens swapping a set of pistons into team mate Eric McKinney’s bike. Ashley had taken a year off after winning the 2011 Pro Extreme Motorcycle championship to crew chief on McKinney’s bike, who won the 2012 title, his first with the ADRL. They have two bikes here this weekend.
Terry Schweigert put up a 4.09 today, the quickest Pro Extreme bike so far in today’s test session. The Suzuki GS bike runs an 1800 cc engine. Schweigert owns Road End Farms, a dairy farm on the US/Canada border in British Colombia, his bike is painted to make with Canada colors on one side and US on the other. Sponsors include Robinson Industries, Vance and Hines, Lectron, Schnitz Racing, Datona Sensors, Vortex Racing Heads and Speedtech nitrous.
Brad Schmidt caught me up on the latest with Todd Tutterow who is now sporting a twin turbo set up. They switched the engine combo from the blower after Rockingham, this is a Brad 8 built in house with a pair of Precision Gen 2 98 mm turbos and backed by a Bruno trans and Neal Chance converter. Their main sponsor is Galot Motorsports with Precision Turbo, AFIS (Advanced Fuel Ignition Systems) Big Stuff and Red Line Oil.
Boyd Beyer is here this weekend with a new car and engine combo after selling his car and nitrous engine he ran last year. This year he switched to a 2006 Jerry Hass Mustang pro Mod and a Brad Anderson Hemi. Today was his first run in a blown car so he was just getting used to driving it and made hit as far as the 330. Boyd has been racing since he was 16 years old after getting involved through his father who raced for Ford Motor Company and was a Hurst Shifting Dr. back in the 60’s doing track service on Hurst parts. Sponsors are Beyer Trailer Sales, Tom Swigart’s Tiffany Jewlers (no not THAT one) in Xenia Ohio and Boyd Sign and Graphics, who is doing the ADRL banners this year. Swigart is the fourth generation owner sine it was established in the mid 1800’s.
The Traction Twins are back this year with the new Scruggsfarm.com Squad 660 Track Prep Team. The Crispe family has been doing the ARDL’s prep since 2010 and this year it’s all Cale and Cody with new equipment thanks to Scruggs Farm, Lawn, and Garden Home Improvement Warehouse. I caught the new scraper in action tonight as the twins were getting things ready for Saturday’s qualifying.
