Tom Hammonds takes to  the track at the third annual Virginia NHRA Nationals with a new chassis for his No. 20 Race for Achievement Chevy Cobalt.  With the new chassis, Hammonds expects to have better results than in past races.

"We have a brand new Jerry Bickel chassis which puts us in a situation where we will be formidable competitors," said Hammonds.    
Tom Hammonds takes to  the track at the third annual Virginia NHRA Nationals with a new chassis for his No. 20 Race for Achievement Chevy Cobalt.  With the new chassis, Hammonds expects to have better results than in past races.

"We have a brand new Jerry Bickel chassis which puts us in a situation where we will be formidable competitors," said Hammonds.    

In the past, the team made adjustments that were quick fixes that allowed them to compete, but not compete at the level they knew their engines were capable of competing.  At times, the chassis caused them to miss being in the qualifying field by thousandths of a second.  The chassis is at least 60 percent of the overall picture for a successful team, and their 60 percent just was not doing it.

"The Jerry Bickel chassis runs better with our engines.  These cars are good for our power curve and the engines that we run.  Our thinking was we cannot seem to do well with the car we have so why not get a Jerry Bickel chassis. The Bickel chassis is the one that I have had the most success from out of my whole career."

Set-up problems, as it pertained to the chassis, were major.  As a result, Team Hammonds chose to sit out the Dallas and Memphis races to prepare for the Richmond race by modifying the set-ups to work with the new chassis.  They tested their new chassis with the modified set-ups in St. Louis and are pleased with the results and are confident the results will be transferred to the Virginia track where it counts.