How can a driver light up the motor in flames several times in the lights and lose his 13th career final round and still smile. It's really not that hard if you have something brighter down the road.
 
There’s a part of Bob Vandergriff that hears the song by Timbuk3 playing in the back of his mind. Now that band might not be a household name, but their song “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” is commonly known.
 
Vandergriff’s optimism is fueled by the progress his team has made with a new engine combination comprised mainly of internal components fabricated in his Alpharetta, Georgia-based racing shop.
 
Today’s 333 mile per hour top speed during Saturday qualifying in Pomona only confirms that he’s on to something.
 
“We just felt they would be better,” Vandergriff said. “We started testing them the last five races and of the [initial phase] Countdown deal and that kind of put us in a bad spot.  I mean we knew that we had better parts but we didn’t have enough information to race it so we kind of threw them in there once in a while trying to get data on it but we didn’t feel comfortable enough racing it. 

How can a driver light up the motor in flames several times in the lights and lose his 13th career final round and still smile. It's really not that hard if you have something brighter down the road.
 
There’s a part of Bob Vandergriff that hears the song by Timbuk3 playing in the back of his mind. Now that band might not be a household name, but their song “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” is commonly known.
 
Vandergriff’s optimism is fueled by the progress his team has made with a new engine combination comprised mainly of internal components fabricated in his Alpharetta, Georgia-based racing shop.
 
Today’s 333 mile per hour top speed during Saturday qualifying in Pomona only confirms that he’s on to something.
 
“We just felt they would be better,” Vandergriff said. “We started testing them the last five races and of the [initial phase] Countdown deal and that kind of put us in a bad spot.  I mean we knew that we had better parts but we didn’t have enough information to race it so we kind of threw them in there once in a while trying to get data on it but we didn’t feel comfortable enough racing it. 
 
“Once we got knocked out of the Countdown deal we decided to go ahead and put all of that stuff on there and it showed a lot of promise in Vegas so we’re excited about this weekend.

 

I think you see a lot of that starting to happen more in the future because the C&C equipment is readily available to us and if you do have something better you want to keep it internal,” Vandergriff said. “You don’t want to have somebody make it and then it go to the whole pit area.  I think you’re going to see that more and more as time goes by.  We’re actually working on a joint program with the people at Richard Childress Racing to help us with the engineering side of it and their engineers to be able to build a lot more stuff internally. - Bob Vandergriff, Jr.

 
Vandergriff has run several times in the 330-mph range already. He said they have had help on the parts but when pressed to specify, he only said that it’s the stuff between the oil pan and the injector.
 
Vandergriff did say these are the parts they usually buy in bulk from manufacturers. With that said, are these special components providing longer engine life?
 
“No, actually they’ve been a little bit more destructive so far,” Vandergriff said. “It’s only because we don’t have enough information on it and we don’t know what to tune up.  A couple of the runs ended with us blowing up at the finish line but we’re fixing it and we’re certainly not adding more fuel to it.  We’re fixing the trouble spots and I’m excited.  I think that if the weather cools off it’ll run in the 4.40’s.”
 
Vandergriff wouldn’t consider himself a trend-setter in this arena, but he did say that his project will be common among the top teams in the future.

I think you see a lot of that starting to happen more in the future because the C&C equipment is readily available to us and if you do have something better you want to keep it internal,” Vandergriff said. “You don’t want to have somebody make it and then it go to the whole pit area.  I think you’re going to see that more and more as time goes by.  We’re actually working on a joint program with the people at Richard Childress Racing to help us with the engineering side of it and their engineers to be able to build a lot more stuff internally."