Rob Goss is ready for the Magic 8 at Orlando Speed World Dragway, and he’s on a mission to show just how dominant his 2009 Dodge Challenger is in X275 trim. After scoring a big win in X275 at Lights Out 11, Goss is coming to Orlando with a fresh car that’s ready for warm conditions.
One thing that many people don’t realize about Goss is just how competitive he really is. His goal at every event is to qualify number one and not show the field any mercy during eliminations. That’s one of the big reasons he enjoys the X275 class: it’s a challenge to be at the top when the competition is so difficult and the rules package is constantly evolving.
To get ready for the Magic 8, Goss has made some changes to his Challenger. The goal of these adjustments was to make the car perform better in difficult conditions when the track is hot.
“The front end got some attention to make this big old boat do a little better on warm tracks. We have struggled with the warmer conditions, so these changes were done to help weight transfer and get the car to move off the line better. We’re going to test before the event to get more data. At the recent race in St. Louis, we found a few things we were doing wrong, so those items have been addressed, too. This will be a perfect event for us to test these changes,” Goss explains.
Donald Long, owner of Duck X Productions, has changed things up with smaller eight-car shootouts like the Magic 8. These changes mean racers have had to make adjustments to their strategies to account for the additional qualifiers and smaller fields. Goss knows they have to not only get down the track to make the show, but they also have to be fast or they will be going home before the main event begins.
“We’ll hit the first qualifier like we normally would and try to go as fast as we think we can go without spinning. After that, we are going to work off the solid pass that gets us in the field. The biggest thing is to just get in the field because there’s only eight spots, you can’t be too soft or you’re going home before the race begins. You can’t go out there with a slow-pitch attitude when everybody else is playing fast-pitch ball. These are going to be eight of the fastest cars in X275, so any of them will have a chance to win the event. It’s going to be a tight field so whoever makes the right calls on race day will win, it’s that simple,” Goss says.
The Magic 8 is going to be a spectacular event you won’t want to miss. SpeedVideo will have all the racing July 23-25 live RIGHT HERE from Orlando Speed World Dragway. This broadcast is brought to you by Jerry Bickel Race Cars, Flying A Motorsports, Vortech Superchargers, and GForce Performance Engineering.
