Shakedown At E'Town 2011 Same Day Coverage - Page 3 of 4

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The Shakedown at E’Town at the legendary Raceway Park in Englishtown has become one of the absolute can’t-miss drag races on the year for racers and fans alike, and with perfect weather in the forecast and an already a stellar collection of who’s-who racers from all over the Eastern United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and other regions on the grounds, it’s shaping up to be perhaps the best Shakedown yet.

The trip to Englishtown has been a rather tumultuous one for Steve Petty, Eric Dillard, and the rest of the Proline team this week. While testing with a handful of other teams at Maryland International Raceway mid-week, Dillard suffered a driveline failure on his first crack at the racetrack, while Tim Lynch fared much worse, experiencing a turbocharger explosion that cause extensive fire damage to his beautiful Outlaw 10.5 Corvette. Dillard and company, who are competing in Outlaw Drag Radial this weekend, were busy this afternoon buttoning their twin-turbocharged back up for tomorrow's first round of qualifying.

Fete Farber and crew are busily rebuilding the supercharged bullet in their Dodge Daytona after discovering some valvetrain issues after the ADRL event in Norwalk two weeks ago.

Last summer, Super Street and Outlaw 10.5 racer Mike Yedgarian experience a devastating transmission explosion in his trick WS6 Trans Am machine, and after making the necessary repairs, placed the car for sale. It was then that Canadian John Carinci jumped at the opportunity to purchase the car, and the result has been nothing but positive. The Trans Am still features the NMCA-legal 550-inch Proline powerplant with twin 88mm turbos, with tuning assistance from Yedgarian and Steve Petty. Carinci won the OSCA Super Street title this season and set the class record at 4.31 seconds over the eighth-mile and has been 6.59 in the quarter. According to Carinci, he and his team are still sneaking up on the combination, and while down some cubic inches on the competition, believe they have the potential to compete with the field on the shorter distance.

Jason Enis is plenty confident coming into the Shakedown this weekend in what is traditionally a stacked field of Outlaw 10.5 competitors. Enos and company made six runs in testing on Wednesday and Thursday at MIR, where the stunning Shelby Mustang recorded an unofficial worls record pass of 4.11 seconds at 191 MPH. Conditions this weekend aren't expected to be as favorab le as they were in Maryland, but it should be fast nonetheless.

We're under way with 8.50 Index category racing here at Raceway Park under asolutely perfect weather conditions, which is a real change of pace from previous years. At the beginning of the session, the corrected altitude was roughly 600 feet below sea level, so making power shouldn't be a problem tonight.

Less than a week removed from breaking the elusive 6-second barrier at MIR, Ryan Schnitz cranked off a 6.96 in Pro Street Bike that has the rest of the troops scratching their heads.

Dean Marinis' crew was all smiles after their driver hammered out an impress 4.859 at 147.73 that's just a few ticks off the record for the category.

Rich Bruder sailed to a new X275 world record in the very first round of qualifying with a 4.841 that leads the field by a comfortable margin...but it's not likely to stay that way.

NMRA Super Street Outlaw regular Sam Vincent is competing in X275 this weekend with hard-charging nitrous car. Vincent roasted the hides just off the starting line and saved it for the second session coming up in a little bit.