Photo Courtesy of Roger Richards at Competitionplus.com
Pomona, Calif. – The CRX team of NHRA Sportsman racers had a very educational first day in the 2010 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, as the 50th Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals kicked off its first day of qualifying at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif.
31-time NHRA National Event Champion Tony Bartone, drove the Rick Jackson Racing Centre Pointe Collision Center / FireIce.com Top Alcohol Funny Car to the provisional pole position today, after recording a solid 5.570 second elapsed time during the first qualifying session of the new season. The run was a welcome surprise to team owner Rick Jackson.
“That’s more like it,” stated the very happy team owner of the Santa Clarita, Calif. based TAFC team. “Last season we hit some out of the park and also stuck out a bunch too. We need to ensure we can run these numbers all weekend, because the rest of the hitters out here will get their cars tuned to this quick Pomona track. The run was a good start, but we are a long way from our goal for this weekend.”
One of those hitters could very well be the Lescure Company (www.lescurecompany.com) sponsored Ron August Jr. driven Ford Mustang TAFC, which produced a conservative 5.78 second elapsed time in Q-1 earlier today. According to August however, the run was anything but spectacular.
Bartone's 5.570 second run in Pomona gave him the pole position
“Les (crew chief Davenport) told us to do exactly what we did last season so he could get a baseline in which to tune our car for the rest of the weekend,” noted August who lives in Pleasanton, Calif. “I told him ‘Well, I don’t know if we can purposely run like S%#t, but we’ll do the best we can’. Last year this car was plagued with a tune up which produced performance we are simply not accustomed to. That’s why we brought Les on board to help us get back to basics. But, the car did get down the track and Les is the man. I’m sure we’ll get the Lescure Company Inc. TAFC car solidly in the field before Saturday’s first round.”
A/Fuel Dragster driver, Johnny Ahten, CRX’s lone representative in the sportsman categories quickest category, Top Alcohol Dragster, ran a sub-par 5.656 second elapsed time at only 222 mph in his first run of the new season. For the fire fighter specialist, who recently moved to his new home in Santa Clarita, Calif., the afternoon’s pass was far less than he expects out of his Lucas Oil / Island Renovations A/Fuel car.
“We missed on the compression ratio a tad on the first pass of the day,” noted Ahten. “The car launched pretty well, had a good 60 foot time, but dropped a cylinder about 330 feet down track. I kept my foot in it and it just kept dropping cylinders. We ran 222 mph with 5 holes out. Luckily we did not damage any parts. We’ll fix the problem and head out tomorrow for we hope will be a much more productive session.”
Tony Bartone, Ron August Jr. and Johnny Ahten will conclude their qualifying efforts tomorrow in Pomona with two sessions scheduled. You can keep up to date with the performance of the CRX Family of drivers with instant results posted from each team on the CRX facebook page and a full recap at crxpromotions.com.
You can also log on to dragracecentral.com for up to the minute detailed race results.
