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Following the first couple of flat-out dominate victories for PA Motorsports, and driver Darren Burke, in the Historic Formula Ford Series, suspicious eyes began to leer. After team owner Peter Alexander notched his fifth straight win, even formerly rational competitors began to snap their petcocks.
Lead driver for PA Motorsports, Darren Burke, piloting the Macon race car.
"Almost right from the first race rumors started that we are running a 'big' engine, mainly because we were getting pole position by quite some margin and our race pace was similar. We have set new lap records at every circuit we have been to so far, even despite carrying an additional 19 kg (43 lbs) of ballast on the car, because a new driver and car weight was introduced for this season," clarifies Alexander.
It all came to a head at the historic Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk, England, when paddock rumors peaked. After the race Alexander's Macon was directed into the scrutineering-bay, something Alexander felt certain would happen. The team was asked to have their differential sealed, to which Alexander eagerly agreed.
"The scrutineers looked at me in a funny way and I explained about the number of rumors I had heard. The scrut's confirmed that they had had their ears bent by a few of our opposition too, so I said, well; while you're sealing the diff can you seal the engine too? I must be the first Team owner to ask for his own engine to be sealed."
"Autosport magazine found it amusing too and ran the story this week. I'm hoping that we can get the diff and the engine checked before the next round at Mallory, so we can go there with everyone knowing we are legal."
We wondered if the Macon was really that much faster than everyone else, or if Burke was in some ludicrously proficient zone, or what was up?
"It's a bit of both," admits Alexander. "I have put a lot of time and effort into the car but Darren is also using it properly. We trust each other totally, he lets me put the set-up on the car I think is right, and I let him get on and drive it. We work really well together and it's nice that he has said it is the best car he has ever driven. He has said that even if he moves on to greater things, he still wants to come back and drive the car for selected races."
Alexander says that the team would love to set the lap record at every single circuit. Currently the Macon holds six outright HFF lap records, more than any other marquee in the Historic Formula Ford Series. If it rains at a particular circuit that they haven't set the lap record on, the team intends on returning next year and nailing it.
Driver Darren Burke has been disappointed with the rumors that the team is only going so fast because they're cheating, he wonders why they refuse to recognize his skill in this historic accomplishment.
"I have to keep telling him that it is a good thing that people are saying these things because 'A' - they don't think the times we are doing can be done and 'B' - if they are worrying about us, they aren't focusing on their own cars and set-up. I just hope that some key people notice what we are achieving together," says Alexander.
Alexander continues, "To be honest I think a lot of them are just bewildered and don't know where to look first for the additional pace. We are visiting a lot of circuits that Darren has never ever been to before and he still produces the goods. A classic example was Oulton Park last year, Darren had never been there, yet on his fourth lap of testing, he was significantly under the lap record. It would be nice to get some recognition for our preparation and set-up as well as the Macon cars, as I still get told that to compete in Historic Formula Ford Series, you have to have a Merlyn."
There are still a few races left for PA Motorsports, including the one at Spa, however Alexander and Burke are extremely confident in the car as well as the driver.
"The more races we win the more I start panicking though that something silly is going to break on the car and spoil our unbeaten run," says Alexander.
"All it takes is a throttle cable to snap for instance. The more we win, and the more lap records we get, the more time I'm spending on the car. We have worked on every area of the car and the support from K&N Filters has been a big help. We are using the K&N products on all of our team cars and we have found significant gains in every one, and in a low powered Formula like, Formula Ford, every little thing makes a difference."
The next round of the HSCC Historic Formula Ford is at Mallory Park on Sunday 20th June. PA Motorsport / K&N Filters and Darren Burke currently lead the Championship by 40 points.
NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park
Drag Racing is quite a game of numbers when you get right down to it, no matter what class or level one competes in.
Mike Edwards is certainly adding all the numbers up in the correct columns by continuing to lower his E.T. numbers which equals higher quantities of win lights come race day, in his Penhall/Interstate Batteries/K&N Pontiac GXP.
Victory for Mike Edwards at NHRA SuperNationals in New Jersey
Immediately after Edwards NHRA Pro Stock victory in Joliet, Illinois, and the first of four back-to-back scheduled events, the team headed to Englishtown, New Jersey for the NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.
When Edwards arrived, the team never skipped a beat and quickly grabbed the number one qualifying spot during session number two by posting a 6.513, which also happens to be the third quickest run in NHRA Pro Stock history.
Mike Edwards also took the Low Qualifier Award
That number would hold through the remainder of the qualifying sessions and place Edwards securely on the pole position for Sunday's Eliminations, where the Coweta, Oklahoma resident would face number sixteen Justin Humphries.
The air conditions on Sunday were quite treacherous for all teams compared to days prior, especially for those classes such as Pro Stock who rely so much on what they are given to work with, and it showed in the much slower E.T.'s the teams posted on race day.
Edwards made his way through Humphries in round one, then moving on to defeat former Pro Stock Champions Greg Anderson and Jeg Coughlin, all who had the starting line advantage, but not the numbers they needed to hold back Edwards tremendous horsepower.
While Edwards was ready for his final round match up with class newcomer Shane Grey, Mother Nature had other plans in mind.
A persistent rain spread over the area last Sunday afternoon and caused NHRA officials to postpone all of the professional final rounds for the SuperNationals until the next morning at 10AM.
Even another rain delay couldn't quiet Edwards's momentum and during the final he had Grey covered easily on both ends of track to garner his third NHRA Pro Stock in a row and his seventh of the 2010 season.
"I was nervous this morning because you just don't know how good the track is until you get on it," Edwards said shortly after his win. "We changed the transmission and rear end yesterday and made some more changes today because we knew that Shane was hungry. As far as I'm concerned, he already has my vote for rookie of the year. I knew I had to have a good light and couldn't lay back, but I wasn't trying to. I may have gotten away with one."
Next stop for Mike Edwards and his Penhall/Interstate Batteries/K&N Pontiac GXP is the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee, June 11-13. The event will also be the final chance for Pro Stock teams to earn points toward making the field for the K&N Horsepower Challenge, where Edwards secured the number one spot many events ago.
Wind was a problem for both round five and six of LOORS event - trucks were consistently over shooting their landing strips.
The Lucas Oil Off-Road Series is in its second year, and this is the second time this year that the event has visited Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS), with a third scheduled for November 6 and 7. The race was run on the 1.1 mile stadium course that Lucas built back in February and the who's who of racing showed up to race.
K&N sponsored Marty Hart battled through sketchy track conditions for his round five LOORS victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
This time around the bi-polar track conditions were a major focus, one hour it was warm and windy and another it's biting cold wind mixed with a tad rain. Wind gusts up to 35 mph made it hard to keep the track damp, and dust became an issue. When trucks fly farther off jumps than anticipated - wind is a problem.
Surviving and thriving under the conditions though was K&N sponsored Marty Hart, driving for Stronghold Motorsports. Hart, the Riverside, California driver routed the field on Saturday in round five of the series. Hart followed that up with a strong second place showing in round six on Sunday.
"We had a great weekend. Bruce found us more power, so it made it a little easier to run upfront," offered Hart.
"Stronghold Motorsports did a complete overhaul on my truck so we are ready to make a run for the championship."
"My relationship with K&N is great," continued Hart. Their air, oil and hose filters work perfect in the dirty race environment that is short coarse racing."
K&N has been a great sponsor over the years, it is really nice using products that are an asset and actually save my race engines. As far as other plans, we are racing both Lucas Oil and the Traxxas Torc Series this season, which will be interesting but I feel our team is up to the challenge.
The 2010 Traxxas TORC Series kicks off at the "Big House" at Crandon International Raceway, in Crandon, Wisconsin June 18-20.
The next event for the Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series is June 26-27 in Utah at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, near Salt Lake City. After that, the series heads to the just-announced event at Glen Helen Raceway in Devore, California, on Aug. 7-8.
At 360 Open Show in Chico, California Forsberg piloted the Brian Cannon Motorsports number 47 car to his third victory of the year.
Andy Forsberg had a very busy weekend, competing in three races in three consecutive days. It unfolded into a very rewarding weekend for him though, in that he got a seventh, his third 360 victory of the year, and a hard fought, yet satisfying second place finish. We wondered what sort of strategic logistics went into pulling that sort of weekend off for the Auburn, California driver.
Forsberg drove A&A number 92 car to a tough seventh place in the in the Golden State Challenge Series race in Petaluma.
"Luckily for me we raced the three nights with two different teams. We raced the 410 in the Golden State Challenge Series race in Petaluma; with the A&A number 92 car. And then the two nights in Chico, California, we raced the Brian Cannon Motorsports number 47 car. Also, Brian Cannon is from Chico, so there was no travel involved for the Saturday and Sunday races," explained Forsberg.
On Saturday, after winning his heat and grinding out a tough seventh place in the Petaluma main the night before, Andy head up to the 360 Open Show in Chico. By the start of that main Andy was convinced that he had a car capable of winning. By lap seven he was putting pressure on the leader, on the next lap he grabbed the lead and never looked back, tallying his third 360 win of the year.
Andy Forsberg Wins 360 Open Show in Chico.
It would be Sunday's race however that would tax Forsberg driving skills the most. "Racing on a rubber down surface is always a guessing game, you never know how hard to push your tires, all you do know is that if you drive as hard as you would typically drive, your tires will not make it," remarked Forsberg.
"We tried a couple of different strategies last year on rubber down tracks, Go like hell and hope you make it, change tires half way through the race, and go like hell again, and hope you can make it back through the field, conserving your tires for the first three-quarters of the race, and then go like hell at the end. It never mattered what we tried, it never worked out, and we always ended the night by thinking we should have just played it safe and kept our track position and just had a decent finish."
"So on Sunday we decided to play the entire race safe and see how things would work out, it definitely was tough, basically letting a couple drivers pass by without a fight. I kept telling myself don't get excited, finish the race, let the other drivers wear out there tires or make a mistake, and we will hopefully capitalize. Luckily for us the drivers that did race hard and passed me, did just that, and we got a good second place finish. And we took over the Civil War points lead."
Forsberg has been with K&N since 2003, during that period he has won 45 races, two California 360 Civil War Championships and two Silver Dollar Speedway 410 Championships.
Says Forsberg, "It takes a lot to race as often as we do and K&N is a big help with that, we run our motors pretty hard, and since we race on dirt keeping them clean is very important, that's why we use K&N carbon fiber sprint car air boxes, filter oil, oil filters, and we use the K&N air filter cleaning solution."
As of last weekend Forsberg still has roughly 38 races left on his calendar. "We are currently trying to buy a ASCS 360 motor so we could potentially race at some of the National ASCS 360 races towards the end of the year in Las Vegas and in Arizona. As of right now we only have open headed 360 motors, and are not legal to race at the ASCS sanctioned races."
Winning the Night Before the 500 USAC National Midget event at O'Reilly Raceway Park is Tanner Swanson biggest win to date and he won the prestigious event on his first attempt.
Given the proper conditions, appropriate parental tutelage, more sunshine than darkness; few bonds on earth are any more powerful than brothers. Check the math - it's one to the second power.
The Swanson brothers say they have tempered their early competitiveness, and they've learned how to communicate with how to help each other win.
Some of the biggest names in racing have attempted to win the Night Before the 500 USAC National Midget event at O'Reilly Raceway Park without success. Nineteen year old Tanner Swanson pulled it off on his first attempt. His brother Kody, three years older, had his back, sandwiching the podium with third place.
"Beyond the race itself, it was really special for Tanner to get that first 'big' win in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Memorial Day, the day before the Indy 500 - I couldn't be prouder of him," said Kody.
Although the brothers drove for different teams, with different cars and set-ups, they still managed to win first and third place.
Both brothers began racing ten years ago and for the first year they competed against each other regularly. Then, for the next six years they raced in different divisions and didn't meet on the track again until 2007, when both started competing in the USAC's professional series.
"In that first year back in 2000, we were probably a little too competitive, but by the time we started racing together in USAC, we had become pretty strong teammates," admits Kody.
"In the years that we spent racing in different classes, we really learned how to communicate with each other, and how to help each other win. We really continue that today, whether we are actual teammates on our TK Motorsports team, or racing against each other, we still try to help each other be our best."
For this particular event the brothers drove for different teams. "Neither of us have full-time pavement midget rides on the USAC National circuit, so we both ended up picking up a ride on a single event basis just for this big event," explained Kody.
"The Wilke-Pak team called me to run a few weeks before the event to set something up, and it actually wasn't until the week of the race that Tanner was able to secure his ride with the DMS Racing team."
Typically, for a big event such as this, most teams will go out and test or practice at the track weeks before the race, but the Swanson brothers actually secured their rides so late that neither Tanner, nor Kody tested, and their first laps in their cars were on the day of the event.
"I would still say that it worked out pretty well, considering we finished first and third, driving for two different teams, that use completely different chassis and engine combinations," remarked Tanner.
Tanner drove in a Beast Chassis with a Ford-Esslinger engine, while Kody raced in a Spiked Chassis with Stanton-Toyota engine. One common denominator is that both cars ran K&N air and oil filters.
"I really like that I can always trust K&N filters for their reliability," continued Tanner. "I can always depend that their filters will do their job without having issues. Minimizing the chance for mechanical failures is very important to me."
Tanner and Kody are from Kingsburg, California, and last year both attended California State University, Fresno, as full-time college students while competing in USAC's National & Western series.
Kody graduated this May and Tanner will enter his Sophomore year in the Fall of 2010 at the same University. Both graduated from Kingsburg High School as Valedictorians, with a GPA that exceeded 4.0.
