|
Foley's Folio
Ready for Gainesville
By Doug Foley
 I returned home from Phoenix as pleased as you can be with a first round loss. The crew and myself had been on the road since mid-January with this new car that we purchased from Connie Kalitta in December. We started at the first Vegas test session hoping to get the new car ironed out and figured at the same time we would try the new 2420 tire. We ended up spending several days making a few runs per day, unfortunately not learning a whole lot. We ended up regrouping and attended the second Vegas test session where we gave up on the 2420 tire and focused on getting the car ironed out. My crew chief, Doug Kuch, made some changes to the tune up and the car seemed to respond in the last few days prior to going to Pomona. I wasn’t 100% thrilled but we were going to Pomona with a good baseline. On a lighter note, I won my first Texas Hold’em tournament in only about 12 tries, hey you’ve got to do something in Vegas.
Now we are off to Pomona where things continue to improve. We got the car into the high 50’s, which is where we left off last year with the old car. Qualifying 12th with a 4.57 at 324 mph, which are three career bests for us. Unfortunately, I need to go to a driving school because I red lit first round giving Rod Fuller the easy win. Frank Hawley does have a building out in the parking lot, maybe I should go visit it. After that disappointing loss, we were headed for Phoenix. It is pretty unusual after all these years of driving to go to a track that I have never competed at before, so we were all looking forward to it. We had some serious mechanical malfunctions on our two runs on Friday, which put us in a situation that we have not been in in a long time – not being in the show on Saturday morning. The entire morning you could walk on eggshells in our pit area. With dragsters going first on Saturday and of course me being the first pair out the pressure was building.
a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
Click to visit our sponsor's
website
I knew Evan Knoll, who is the owner of Torco Race Fuels, which just happens to be my sponsor, was at the starting line. He is usually so busy he does not get to attend too many NHRA events but I had the opportunity to see him just prior to making the run, it definitely helped to build my confidence since I very rarely run bad with Evan around. We went 4.57 at 322 mph putting us in the #14 spot believe it or not. I never thought you could run that fast and still be 14th.
We stepped it up a little bit in the final session running a 4.56 in the heat of the day. We qualified #11, which was our highest spot on the NHRA tour so far. We ran Grubnic first round on Sunday and we duplicated our 4.56 but unfortunately that was not fast enough. Grubnic beat us with a 4.49. We stayed and tested on Monday along with 32 other cars trying to get a handle on this new 2420 tire. The tire has a very small margin of error but I think Doug Kuch is starting to get a handle on it. All the guys are going to work hard over the next couple of weeks to get our second team car together which Rick Cooper drives on the IHRA side and then we will head off to the Gator Nationals with my car just prior to going to the San Antonio IHRA event with both cars. I will post my next blog after the Gatornationals.
Return
to Contents
Got a comment? Drop us a line at comppluseditor@aol.com.
a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
Click to visit our sponsor's
website
|
