Keith Neal Racing Scores Win At NMRA Season Opener
March 11th, 2009
Thanks to Sheppard Race Cars and our new Crew Chief Rick Irwin, we were able to get the car back together in time to make some shakedown runs with the new engine at Atlanta Dragway on Thursday. Talk about cutting things close, we arrived at Bradenton too late for the 1st round of qualifying but was able to qualify 4th with a 7.269@195.95!
After all the problems last year, we were determined to avoid parts failures this time out, so we backed the new John Urist built bullet down to only 28 lbs of boost, then set it up everything to leave nice and soft, which paid off in spades for us later Sunday during eliminations. Speaking of the new John Urist built bullet, that thing is bad to the bone!!! It was great to not have a bit of engine trouble during the weekend - it didn't even leak a drop of all the entire race! A billion thanks to John Urist !!!
Round 1 of eliminations we drew Dwayne James who suffered a fire during the pass and only went 9.622@84.38, vs our 7.453@197.71
In the Semi-Finals we faced off with Mike Murillo from Texas - the #1 Qualifier. Unfortunately Keith redlighted, but so did Murillo - but he did it worse! -.013 to a -.015 and the car made it's strongest pass of the day, 7.237@207.56,
During Eliminations Keith was up against Ruben Tetsoshvili but no redlights this time... Ruben lost traction and went 9.20@147.34, game over for him, we went 7.281@199.37!
Keith would like to thank our New Crew Chief, Rick Irwin, who did an awesome job! Tracy and Craig from Garrett Turbochargers helped us out all weekend and we had a great time hanging out with them. We would also like to thank Sheppard Race Cars who finished up the final details on the car for us in time to make the race!
To our sponsors - we couldn't have pulled off this win without you...
Garrett Turbochargers - for providing plenty of boost to make the power we needed, and the support from Tracy and Craig was highly appreciated!
Mickey Thompson who got us fixed up with the new 16" tire on a 16x16 rim which worked AWESOME - they've really got something going on with that new tire design!!
Andy from KnKut again was a huge help both on and off the track, KnKut has been a huge asset to our team in many ways.
Jimmy Blackmon at Straightline Chassis - for building the best chassis bar none!
Marty at Neal Chance Racing Converters - the best in the business!
The next race on the schedule is the 7th Annual NMCA Ross Pistons Muscle Car Nationals in Bradenton, FL March 27th. You can rest assured that the wick is going to be turned up a few more notches in preparation for the next race!
