Friday

It’s hard to think it’s been twenty 26 of the Orlando World Street Nationals this weekend, but here we are for another amazing spectacle of speed and raw horsepower. This year we have 13 classes to run, including the new 1- Stop Automotive True Street, which will feature a street cruise on Saturday morning. Maximum Machine Works Heavy Street is also participating after a major revamp of the rules in an effort to mix things up and invoke the old school performance, with no wheelie bars and tagged and insured real street cars.

The weather on Friday is overcast with spotty rain which is effecting our schedule but should clear by Saturday morning and allow us some great weather for the rest of the weekend and some exciting racing.

Melanie Salemi has a brand new car here this weekend, purpose-built for Radial vs. the World by G-Force Race Cars. The car is owned by Eddie Whelan, with sponsorship Al Lee Installations. The car gets power from a screw blown MSR Hemi.

“It’s going pretty good,” Melanie told us after her first run this morning. “We’ve just been taking it slow and doing some testing. Last night we went 3.70 and just went another 3.70 this morning…we are well on our way to making a full run and hopefully can turn the world upside down this weekend. Eddie really likes the radial class and John was very successful with Nova Joe in the GTO, which Eddie also owns. Paulo Guist, who is tuned by Jim, as well, runs very well so we figured it was time to see what we could do with the radial tire ourselves and a different engine combination and have some fun.”

Salemi is entered in Duck X Productions Radial vs the World this weekend and definitely looking to shake things up here in Orlando.

Jerico Balduff took some time off from the PDRA schedule to focus on work with the family business, Extreme Concrete, and make some changes to the Chevelle. The team switched to FuelTech engine management, changed to a new rearend featuring a new 11-inch unit from Carmack Engineering and a set of Penske rear shocks from PRS.

“We have done a lot of work in the past couple of weeks,” Jerico told us. “Pretty much nonstop grinding. We went to FuelTech Tuesday and ran the car on their hub dyno, getting everything working properly and put almost 3,200 horsepower through it. We came home and the car laid down a 3.77 off the trailer here and today went a .74.”

It was a big help for the team getting it dialed in and troubleshooting at FuelTech, allowing them to get a head start on the track set up.

“It’s a little weird on the dyno because the car makes a lot of noise and all the vibrations but you aren’t going anywhere. Thanks to Luis and Cameron at FuelTech for all the help getting it sorted out…we would still working on the car if we had not made the trip. I could not ask for nicer people — the whole experience was amazing.” Jerico said. Balduf uses a Steward Performance-built Hemi with a Hammer supercharger topping Noonan Heads and Alan Johnson block in the Andy McCoy-built, Gotham City-themed Chevelle.

Brian Keep is fresh off back-to-back Ultra Street wins at No Mercy X and the ODRC in Bradenton and is working the short track tune-up before going into qualifying this evening. He managed three 1.07’s so far here in Orlando and scored a 1.06 on his fourth attempt, and second on the day, running it to half track.

“We are slowly making minor changes to see how much 60-foot we can get out of the car. A 1.07 is our best but we went three in a row here so far and see if we can’t get a 1.06 here on the next pass,” Brian told us earlier this morning. Brian and the crew will be working hard for the three-peat this weekend.

Largo, Florida’s Bryan Markiewicz has a new engine combo in his Radial vs the World Camaro, switching to Pro Line Racing’s new Procharger combo right before No Mercy X. He has a handful of runs on it since and nabbed a 3.71 on the fourth pass before losing in round two eliminations there. Today he scored a 3.695 at 201 during testing on his only pass so far here today.

Jason Lee is behind the wheel of Eric Gustufson’s Camaro this weekend as Eric is too busy with work to make the trip out to Florida. Lee piloted the car at Shakedown earlier this year and is looking forward to some more seat time.

Danny Rogers has the Mental Health S-10 Chevy and will be running the new 1-Stop Automotive True Street and 10.0 index this weekend. The truck is powered by a junkyard LS with a Little John Motor Sports camshaft and single turbo. Rogers has had the truck for two and a half years and is a regular here at Orlando with this being his first time participating in the OWSN as a racer. He gets help from Matt at The Sheep Shop in Longwood, Florida, Robert Carson and Jack from Preferred Landscaping.

Jim Halsey scored the 2019 PDRA Pro Nitrous championship this year earning his first national championship after coming down to the last race in a points battle with Tommy Franklin. Halsey runs a Fulton Competition engine with Switzer Dynamics nitrous system in his Jerry Bickel-built Camaro. “I have to thank my girlfriend Cathy for being there and my crew Eric and Michael, Brandon Switzer and Gene Fulton, Jerry Bickel, Monty Mikho and the Yellow Bullet Nationals, Mo Hall, Marty Chance and everyone that contributes to our performance.” – Jim Halsey. From left to right, Brandon Switzer, Cathy Crouse, Jim Halsey and Eric Davis.

Raul Torres (right) shown with John Rollins was the Florida N/T Shootout winner at the ODRC with his car ‘Forrest Gump’ but this weekend has his nitrous-huffing Fox body, ‘Code Blue’ on the property to battle it out in the 28 N/T Shootout.

Over the summer the Gregan family has been working on a new bullet and a switch over to a Procharger for the Ultra Street class Mustang using the F1A-91 head unit with a Chris Alston gear drive. The new Fast Forward Racing Engines short block will feature a Dart Iron Eagle block and a new design of Bennett Racing prepped hi port heads and a 2828 Edelbrock intake manifold along with a spec camshaft package. The new port design features 265 cc runner volume with a 2.125 intake valve and 1.6 exhaust valve diameter. Internals will use Diamond pistons with a Callies crankshaft and Callies Ultra series connecting rods. A Wilson throttle body and elbow will top off the engine.

The fabrication and custom stainless headers to complete the swap is being done by Innovative Racecraft in Plant City, Florida. Further modifications include a tube front end forward of the shock towers along with a front mount fuel cell, an inter cooler and the associated plumbing for the VP Q16 and rewiring the electronics in the car for the switch to fuel injection and the Holley Dominator EFI system with Dave Hanlon from Propulsion Laboratory lined up to tune it.

Gregan uses an FTI Transmission and converter with power going back to a TRZ Motorsports fabricated rear housing, also using their front and rear control arms and anti roll bar along with Innovative Racecraft spec Black Ops shocks and struts. A new FTI trans and bolt together converter will see duty behind the now ProCharged Ultra Street car.

It’s been longer than anticipated getting the changeover completed but Bill and the team is here in Orlando prepared to put some laps on the Mustang after a some test runs at Bradenton and a dyno session at Real Speed Racing to get a baseline tune up and ensure everything is working as it should. The final wiring and Holley engine management installation was performed at Pro Fab Performance in New Port Richey and Matt laRue will be here this weekend assisting Team Gregan.The crew consists of Bill Gregan, his wife, Bobbi Gregan, son Tyler Gregan, his girlfriend Madison Teeters and Bradley Wigland.

This morning was a harbinger of things to come as the clouds rolled in and only allowed for a limited testing session today. We will resume Saturday morning at 10 AM providing the weather has cleared and the track surface is ready to go.