Hey all Gregg Racing Fans, Friends & Nitro Junkies!! We have some GREAT NEWS in the Gregg Racing A/Fuel Dragster Camp!!! This weekend is the Fall Classic Race at Woodburn Dragstrip and on Friday the 16th, is the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series (LODRS) Woodburn Make-Up Race for the event that was rained out back in mid-July. The CBM Means Business; Gregg Racing A/Fuel Dragster Team has come out early, today on Thursday the 15th to do some testing in preparation for this make-up race tomorrow the 16th. The KILLER NEWS is that we have the privilege of having JERRY DARIEN join us again at this race as our Co-Crew Chief!! WHOO HOO!!! Jerry is one of the top A/Fuel Tuners on the PLANET and has trained more NHRA Pro Top Fuel Drivers than any other Tuner/Car Owner in history! He has been called the “Trainer to the Stars”. A partial list of drivers he’s personally trained includes:
- Gary Scelzi
- Frank Pedgregon
- Melanie Troxel
- Steve Faria
- Brandon Bernstein
- Morgan Lucas
- Ashley Force
- Troy Buff
- Brittany Force
- Courtney Force
- Megan McKernan
His tuning skills are known for their conservative nature, keeping his rookie Drivers safe and his parts lasting a LONG, LONG time! The standing joke is that you NEVER, EVER cut a Zip Tie from the wrong end on Jerry’s team, or he’ll have your HEAD! We reuse all zip ties and that attitude is representative of the ultra-conservative approach Jerry has taken to A/Fuel racing. When others through HUGE sums of money at their programs, buying the latest part to fall off the newest CNC Machine, Jerry sticks with what he has, making it work. And he makes it work! His career best is a 5.22 ET at 275 MPH with Ashley driving- but that was in the “good ole’ days”, when NHRA allowed 100% Nitro. Jerry says, “100% Nitro adds 50 IQ points to any Tuner!” Now, after several drops in our Fuel Percentage, we’re down to 94% by the current NHRA rules, it’s WAY harder to makes these Cars run- especially when it’s hot out! So, how’s Jerry done on 94%, WITHOUT the “50 IQ Point ‘Bonus’ Points” that used to come naturally by way of running 100% Nitro? Well, on 94%, with Courtney in the Car, his Career Best is a 5.23 ET at 272 MPH!! PHENOMENAL performance out of a Living Legend (That’d be Jerry, – Courtney will earn her Stripes in the Years to Come! J ) whom we at Gregg Racing are TRULY HONORED to have helping us out this weekend at Woodburn! Come be a part of the Program and meet Jerry if you haven’t already- you’ll be glad you did!!
Jerry has been a good friend to Gregg since Gregg bought his A/Fuel Car from Jerry back in 1999- the Car Jerry had built for Melanie Troxel to drive. It wore the In-N-Out Burger colors in those days.
UPDATE!! Thursday 6:45 PM– We had intended on making two Test Passes today, but…. , as they say, nothing’s easy. We got one hit in today, but it was a GREAT opening to our long anticipated weekend! In fact, in “Jerry speak”, he told me one time when I was complaining to him about how TERRIBLY difficult it is to run one of these VERY finicky A/Fuel Dragsters- He Said, “Gregg, if it were easy, the Pits would be full of 3rd Grade Girls with A/Fuel Cars!!!” It isn’t easy running an A/Fuel Car, or probably much of anything worth doing in life! BUT, today, we had a GREAT opening Pass!
Allow me to share a little bit of the “Inside the Tuner’s Corner” with you:
Coming here today, we knew-
- The Air would be VERY good- about 1100’ Corrected Density Altitude
- We have been having issues with the Car “Smoking the Tires” at the Hit
- Smoking the Tires SUCKS and you learn NOTHING doing this!
- We’d have to REALLY “back the Car down”, by lowering all our Tune-Up settings pretty dramatically for our first Pass
- We Set a VERY Mild Tune-Up and……. (OMG!) WAIT, I need to tell you just a LITTLE MORE for perspective. (Sorry for the tease, but it’s REALLY worth it! I promise!
When we qualified for this race, just 8 short weeks ago, here’s what our Time Slip looked like:
|
60′ ET |
0.990 |
|
330′ ET |
2.548 |
|
660′ ET |
3.725 |
|
660′ MPH |
213.47 |
|
1000′ ET |
4.721 |
|
1/4 ET |
5.596 |
|
1/4 MPH |
252.80 |
The best we could muster was a 5.596 ET @ 252.80 MPH. Today, we came out of the “Box” (Trailer) and with a VERY mild Tune-Up, HERE’S what our first Hit Time Slip looks like! Below:
|
60′ ET |
0.986 |
|
330′ ET |
2.491 |
|
660′ ET |
3.634 |
|
660′ MPH |
219.29 |
|
1000′ ET |
4.608 |
|
1/4 ET |
5.463 |
|
1/4 MPH |
258.91 |
ALMOST a tenth and a half better! …AND, as the late night Infomercials say… “But Wait, There’s More!!!!”
On this run, it dropped #4 Cylinder at 4.4 Seconds! Woulda’, Coulda’, Shoulda’! But, we’ve fixed this so it (Hopefully!) won’t happen again, along with addressing a NUMBER of other issues, and we TRULY believe that our first 5.3 Pass is IN THERE, WAITING for us to turn the knobs JUST RIGHT and that it will come out THIS WEEKEND!!! The Motor was very safe, nothing was hurt and we’re VERY excited about tomorrow! 🙂
Eliminations begin at 1:30 Tomorrow! I’ll try to do more posts, but the BEST option is to just come out here and JOIN US!!
Gregg
Gregg Racing 