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Duck Tape Racing's Michael Beard and his Plymouth Turismo
Duck Tape Racing’s 1985 Plymouth Turismo has been putting up the usual numbers that eventually lead to a successful year. The first win of the year, so far, came about in the Farmington Race of Champions at Farmington Dragway. He reached two semi-final rounds this season helping tremendously in the points chase. Beard faced a few unexpected problems early this season, experiencing a flat tire at the last turn of the track during the Palm Beach Nitro Jam and a minor brake issue at Immokalee Regional Raceway, which luckily could be fixed before the first round began the next day.
Michael Beard made many changes to the Duck Tape Turismo this year, and it looks to be paying off.
Beard made some changes to the Duck Tape Turismo this year including; new racing slicks which, Beard remarks, “are two inches taller than what we're used to running on this car. With a front wheel drive combination, obviously the slicks are on the front, and this can affect both reaction time and the car's final gear ratio.” The new tires took Beard all the way to the semi-finals at the Carolina Class Racers Association S/SS Combo in Fayetteville, NC. Post race Beard mentioned, "It feels good to light a bunch of win lights, particularly right off the bat with a new combination.”
Farmington Race of Champions at Farmington Dragway
Reaction times and E.T.s remain consistent for Beard this season despite the minor set-backs. He has managed to make the necessary adjustments to stay on his game; even, "Between fixing a dragging right-rear brake drum and the swap to a lighter pair of wheels on the back of the car coupled with much lighter Mickey Thompson ET Front tires, the car is making that initial move a little quicker.” Beard feared red-lights would become common with the new set-up. He did not have much luck in Rockingham lighting a red-light almost every run and, “ went back to shallow staging, which we are required to do in Stock Eliminator racing anyway. It's a challenge, but I'm more comfortable trying to hit the tree hard than to wait on it," as he mentioned after the double header in March.
Some may have seen Beard driving his Duck Tape Volare last season to a few event winner’s circles and they will have the chance to see the car back in action soon enough. Work is currently being done on the car to get it ready for racing. The car is expected to make its first appearance of 2011 on the weekend of May 6th and will be driven by Beard himself.
K&N's Multi-time National & Divisional Event Champion, Tommy Phillips. Photos by: IHRA Communications.
After a uncharacteristic slow start to his 2011 season, multi-time NHRA event champion Tommy Phillips swept his first ever IHRA Nitro Jam event during the sanctioning bodies return to San Antonio Raceway.
Tommy Phillips doubles up at his first IHRA Nitro Jam in his K&N Quick Rod and Super Rod entries. Photos by: IHRA Communications.
Phillips entered both his Tigerflow/K&N Engineering backed '57 Corvette Roadster in Super Rod [9.90 index class] and one of his dragster's into Quick Rod [8.90 index class].
Not only was competing in this type of event new to the Forney, Texas resident, but so was competing with the dragster he brought along for Quick Rod.
"I actually didn't take my normal [8.90 class car]," Phillips confessed. "I have two new dragsters this year and one was built just so I could bracket race. For whatever reason, I don't really have an explanation why, but I just wanted to run that other car and hadn't really had any seat time in it. So I thought that was the one I was taking."
K&N Corvette Roadster performed flawlessly throughout the San Antonio event. Photos by: IHRA Communications.
Over the course of the event, there were as many as five opportunities for Phillips to make time runs in each of his classes, although he chose to skip a couple of sessions.
"Even though I had never driven the dragster I brought in 8.90 class before, it was just dialed in," he said of his choice to sit out on the additional runs. "And the Corvette was the same way. It made really good runs and my lights were where they were supposed to be. Neither car did anything weird or gave me any reason to go out and work anything and make more runs."
Not the car he built for 8.90 racing, Phillips takes his bracket dragster to the Quick Rod final in its first event. Photos by: IHRA Communications.
"I didn't really have the best draw for first round in Quick Rod, running one of the hottest drivers over there [IHRA] right now, Clayton Nance," he said. "That's not an ideal draw and normally would be a difficult run, but he red-lighted. I ended up having a good run and it would have been a good race."
"Right or wrong, I don't pay a lot of attention to who I'm going to run," he added. "I just try to stay in my own little word, for the thirty seconds or so and run my race."
That set Phillips up for a run with former Division 4 champ, Michael Johnston in round two. Phillips able to carry his .016 starting line advantage for a win light and on to round three.
Over in Super Rod, Phillips was maintaining the round for round pace in his Corvette, also making his way to the later and darker rounds and was doing his best to keep dialed in on the starting line in both cars.
"I knew going in that the later rounds at this event were going to be after dark," he explained. "I'm pretty conservative and I'm pretty old-school and traditionally I'm a little slower on my react at night with the LED bulbs. But I have a good fifteen years or so before LED bulbs of running at night where you would normally pick up two [hundredths]. So I usually struggle a little but at night, because my brain will not let me roll that delay out like I should."
Phillips had earned a bye into the final in Super Rod and his .012 redlight during that round weighted on his mind as he went on to his first of two finals, the first his match-up in Super Rod with Kip Guenzel.
Call it conservative or just plain smart, Phillips had a comfortably safe light .026 light and although behind at the hit, still managed to outdrive Guenzel at the stripe and force his opponent under for the Super Rod Ironman.
In Quick Rod, Phillips had also earned a bye into the final and this time to meet up with Gina Mundt.
Unlike Super Rod, Phillips not only had the starting line advantage this go-round but also a little extra strategy prepared based on lane choice. His plan worked, as he was easily able to force Mundt deep under the index for an 8.876 to 8.919 victory.
The wins in both Quick Rod and Super Rod were not only Phillips' first IHRA Nitro Jam Ironmen, but also set him up for a shot at IHRA World Champion crowns in both classes when the 2011 IHRA Tournament of Champions is contested later this season at Virginia Motorsports Park, just outside of Richmond, Virginia.
"You know overall it was textbook," he said of the weekend. "I drove pretty well for me and I say that because I got off to kind of a rough start for the season. I really struggled and made some poor decisions during the first few races."
Phillips has been a K&N product user for many years and is proud to not only use their entire line of products, but carry K&N to the winner's circle, no matter which car from his stable that he may be competing with.
"Gosh, you know I just couldn't be out there doing all this without K&N and their products," he said. "Truthfully, it's just nice to work with K&N. They have a true commitment to sportsman racing unlike many companies out there. I just feel very fortunate to be able to work with everyone at K&N."
While Dan Fletcher didn't consider win latest victory, "pretty, but effective enough to win", the dynamic sportsman racer from Churchville, New York may just have a different take on the weekend's events than the "Average Joe".
After Gainesville, Fletcher parked his rig and cars outside of Atlanta in preparation for the Concord 4-Wide event and flew to Las Vegas to drive his friend, Dave Bridgewater's Comp Eliminator car and his Stock car, although Fletcher entered it in Super Stock.
"Qualifying was hot, hot and slick," Fletcher reflected. "The track wasn't all that stellar on the starting line. The first run was a throwaway, we had some problems. The second lap we made a decent lick, I think we were eight or nine [on the ladder]."
"There were only twenty-eight cars total," he continued. "The third session we spun and didn't get down good and got bumped all the way down to sixteenth. So that gave us number two in the first round, which was not a good draw obviously. He was faster than us and even if we made a good run he would still be a couple of hundredths quicker than us."
Coming into the 12th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Fletcher had an astounding seventy NHRA National Event wins, with twelve of them coming in Comp Eliminator and with that much racing knowledge, he certainly had a game plan for round one.
"If you beat him you are probably going to have to use up index to win the round," he said of his first round pairing with Clint Sallee. "If I did beat him I was going to have [Dave] Rampy second round and the future just didn't look very bright."
With a little bit of luck on Fletcher's side for the first time during the event, Sallee pulled up the red in round one and sent him on to meet up with fellow K&N competitor Dave Rampy in round two. Both able to come into to the round clean or no CIC penalty after round one.
"As the situation played out, round two was run Sunday morning when the track was still in good shape," explained Fletcher. "So we made a good run against Rampy and I hit the tree good. You know if we made a good run, we were probably about equally as fast [as Rampy]. He was a little late, so that enabled me to get down there, kill a little and still get there first."
Even though the round win cost him .05 CIC, Fletcher was starting to have a little different outlook on the remaining rounds. "So fortunes we changing a little bit," he said. "What wasn't looking so good, now wasn't looking so bad."
In round three, Fletcher slayed Jeff Lane on the tree giving himself .044 starting line advantage and showing how it's done at the stripe, he cut that down to .009 for the win and no additional CIC.
The semi-finals would pair Fletcher up with 2010 Division 6 Champion, Aaron Strong who also was carrying a CIC hit into the round, but .03 less than Fletcher. The K&N champ made up a bunch of it right off the line, by bettering Strong's reaction time by .02 and on to the final.
"I knew it was going to be an interesting final," he explained. "I knew I couldn't go fast enough to do permanent damage [CIC]. I thought I was just going to hold it wide open and not even look. That plan was aborted at about three-hundred feet when I looked up and saw my win light was on."
Alan Ellis was down .04 going up against the champ, and threw away his chance at a fourth NHRA National Event win by a .016 premature launch, handing Dan Fletcher his thirteenth NHRA National Comp Eliminator Wally, seventy-first overall.
"You know I thought going into the whole event, after qualifying, that my chances at doing well were actually better in Super Stock," Fletcher confessed. "And once we got going I thought I may even have a chance at winning in both, but it didn't work out that way for me in Super Stock."
Fletcher is quick to point out that whether he is driving his familiar K&N Chevy Camaros or his friend's cars, like he did in Las Vegas, they are all fully equipped with K&N products.
"The Comp car has all the same K&N products on it that took us to a World Championship in that car two years ago," he said. "They all served us well again this weekend. As you look across the Comp ranks, I can guarantee you that we put more runs on our motor between freshen ups than any other teams do. We all know that a big part of that is an oil system and an oil filter that keeps everything lubricated and safe. And that's what K&N products do."
After an odd start to the 2011 season for former NHRA Pro Stock Champion Mike Edwards, that has included everything from a DNQ at the Winternationals to a strange starting line fiasco at the Gatornationals, the third event of the season proved to be the charm for he and his Penhall/K&N/Interstate Batteries team.
Mike Edwards' Penhall/K&N/Interstate Batteries Pontiac Grand Prix
At Gainesville, Edwards debuted his new Jerry Haas-built Pontiac Grand Prix and by the time the team's rolled into Las Vegas for the SummitRacing.com Nationals, the car and its driver were loaded for bear.
During the spring event at Las Vegas in 2010, Edwards won and began a streak that would carry him to seven finals and six wins. It was one of his eight total Pro Stock victories over the season.
"It is always fun to come back to a track and try to defend that title," he noted. "When you pull back into the facility, it floods you with all those fond memories of victory and it rekindles your drive because you want that feeling again."
Edwards did a lot more than just rekindle, he sat The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway a blaze from the first moment he went down the track until he put his Grand Prix in the Winner's Circle.
During the first round of qualifying, Edwards had the only sub-one second sixty foot time of the session and that parlayed into the quickest ET with a 6.715 at 206.26, doing so on a very hot 124 degree race track.
In the second session on Friday, when no other team could seem to come close to their earlier in the day efforts, Edwards managed to find a little more and better his first time. He posted a 6.709 and continued to separate himself from the number two qualifier, setting the bar even higher.
"The track was very hot," Edwards said. "If you look at my record over the years, we seem to run better in the summertime. But the conditions are supposed to be cool on Sunday. We have to race the conditions as well as the guy in the next lane on Sunday."
And the stellar performances that Edwards showed on Friday continued into both sessions on Saturday. He posted a 6.695 at 206.51 and a 6.713 at 206.26 in qualifying round three and four respectfully, out running every other team in each session and not only gaining the twelve maximum qualifying championship bonus points, but grabbing the Pro Stock pole position for the thirty-fifth time in his career.
"We had four solid runs down the track," Edwards said. "Hat's off to all my guys and all the people who support us, the Penhall Company, the Interstate people, K&N, and all the great folks who stood behind me so much for the last four or five years."
Going into Sunday's eliminations, Edwards was the only Pro Stock driver to have made sub-6.70 runs, but he knew that the changing weather forecast would be favorable for more teams to reach into the 60's. "These things are aspirated. They breathe what we breathe," he noted. "If the air's cooler, they run better. The track is better. That's good for everybody."
Just as everyone expected, the air and track were both cooler for race day and Edwards lined up againist Richard Freeman for their first time battle in eliminations. Although Freeman gave his all at the hit and left with the advantage, the K&N Grand Prix of Edwards made a fantastic 6.672 pass and easily shut Freeman down.
Edwards' car continued on to round two like it was in bracket mode, running another 6.674 and taking down Erica Enders after her slight seven thousandths of a second holeshot, passing her shortly after the tree when her car made a sharp move to the wall.
The quickest and fastest pass for the meet in Pro Stock came from Edwards in his semi-final match up with V. Gaines and a fantastic 6.662 at 206.95. The round win would put him in his first Pro Stock final since Dallas 2010 and in search of his first win after a long dry spell, last claiming the Wally in June 2010 at Bristol.
For the final, it would be the champ Edwards against the kid, Vincent Nobile in just his fourth NHRA Pro Stock event. Nobile had also made a couple of passes in the 60's, but was going to need a little more if he hoped to deny Edwards of the win.
The fans got a great final round in Pro Stock, Nobile giving Edwards a super run of it, carrying his starting line advantage to half-track. Edwards saved his best RT of eliminations for when he needed it the most, catching his opponent and taking the stripe by a mere .007.
The win was Mike Edwards' twenty-ninth NHRA Pro Stock victory and he did it in grand style, sweeping the event for all points possible and with only a handful of events left to qualify, regaining some ground in the 2011 K&N Horsepower Challenge.
"We run good when it gets hot; we run better, I should say. This place is pretty special. Jon Kight, I used to work for him years and years ago, and he lived here. I worked for him and George Marnell a couple of years at Sierra Glass. We teamed up and he gave me my start," he said of his success at the Las Vegas track. "I don't know what the place is. It's summertime. It's hot. We seem to gel and come together here."
The next event on the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle schedule will find the teams not just worried about who is in the other lane, but the other three lanes. The NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at beautiful zMax Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte, takes place April 14-17.
Toni McCray is continually learning from other racers, here she is sharing a laugh with 1992 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of The Year, Lynn St. James.
Choosing a life in racing isn't something you talk to a career counselor about - nine times out of ten - it's either in your blood or it's not. Case in point, Toni McCray, "I grew up in racing. My dad (Rick McCray) competed in the K&N Pro Series and in the late 1990's he had a Camping World Truck Series team," said the Highland, California native.
McCray is looking forward to competing full-time with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series in 2011.
Like so many others, McCray got her start racing go-karts, that was back in 1994. She continued on-and-off with that when and wherever she could. Then in 2006 McCray got the opportunity to run a Legend Car at the Summer Shoot Out at Lowes Motor Speedway (now Charlotte Motor Speedway). The following year she competed in five Super Late Model races, and in 2008 she ran a full season at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. McCray has continued to make the most of every opportunity to earn her racing chops one event at a time.
"Since then I have been competing full-time in the Super and Late Model divisions at Orange Show Speedway and Irwindale," adds McCray. "I have one Super Late Model win, and six Late Model wins."
Save that hat kid, it will be worth a lot someday.
Last Saturday in the Late Model season opener at Irwindale McCray finished with a second and fourth. She currently sits second in the points.
"Last year, I competed in two K&N Pro Series races both at Phoenix International Raceway. We finished 13th and 26th," continues McCray. "I really like the bigger tracks the K&N series gets to run on, and I hope my sponsorship comes together so we can compete full-time this year."
"K&N has been really good to me over the last couple of years. Tony and Bob are great people to work with. K&N filters are the best out there and I wouldn't race with anything else. I am really grateful for the partnership and look forward to many years to come."
Asked whether she felt any additional challenges being a woman racer coming into the NASCAR K&N Pro Series she says, "It's always interesting coming into a new series. The nice thing is, I have competed against a few of the guys in a Super Late and Late Model, so they are usually pretty welcoming. I think Greg Pursley has been the best about trying to help me, which has been awesome."
"I look at myself as competitor not as a female. I am very blessed to have a dad that has experience in these cars and on these tracks to lean on. He really gives me a good idea of what to expect and look for going into these different tracks. Which is not a bad thing to have on your side."
McCray says her immediate goal is to gain more experience on the bigger tracks so that she can move up to the Camping World Truck Series.
"I want to win as many races as I can, and prove that I have the talent, and that I deserve to be here just like the other guys."
