04-21-07: Fontana,
CA. The inaugural Nostalgia Nitro Shootout at California Dragway
was conceived and organized by the All American Fuel Dragsters,
LLC and the Nostalgia Funny Car Assoc. to showcase their nitro
burners to SoCal fans who had never seen these kinds of cars
at Fontana before. The one day event was limited to 150 cars
that included 5 Top Fuel Dragsters, 11 fuel Funny Cars and a
large field of Nostalgia Eliminator 1 cars.
Since this was
not an actual race per se, the High Speed Motorsports team took
advantage of the exhibition to test the newest generation of
M&H "spec" tires and the new Donovan girdle that
Tom Shelar developed for the Donovan aluminum hemi block.
Photos
and story below.
No, this is not the
pits at Fontana... its the parking lot of the Ontario Mills Mall
where Dave & Buster's hosted the Pre Race Party and Live
Broadcast on KOLA 99.9 radio on Friday. Aside from being fierce
competitors, the High Speed Motorsports team are great ambassadors
of the sport. Here they unload the car prior to an afternoon/evening
of goodwill and lots of fun.
Can you imagine what
shoppers thought when they saw a Top Fuel dragster looking for
a parking place!
Along
with Jack Wright's new funny car, the HSMS dragster was poised
at the entrance of Dave & Busters.
Driver, Troy Green was
on hand to answer questions, sign autographs and give some fans
an up close and personal look at the race car.
Do you think they made
this little guy happy?
Into the evening hundreds
of folks stopped by to visit. Needless to say, it was a great
promotion for the event and excellent exposure for the HSMS sponsors.
The following day, under
overcast skies, the very low keyed event didn't warrant a full
pit set-up. No awning or mat were needed.
As noted, one of the goals of the day was to test
the new bottom end "girdle" for the Donovan engine.
Troy Green explains the changes and advantages of
the newly designed billet girdle to WDIFL.com photographer Bob
Brown.
The other reason for
attending was to test the new M&H slicks. This is a tire
that 93 year old Marv Rifchin (the M in M&H) has been working
on for three years. It's design and the way they are constructed
is very different from previous releases. This will hopefully
solved the "chunking" problem the NTF cars have been
experiencing the past.
Troy Green starts his
burnout for their first test run. John Hashim of M&H Tires
can be seen behind the car with an infrared heat gun, checking
tire temps. The M&H team are taking this new tire very seriously
and are trying to get as much data on them as possible before
they hopefully become the only tire used in the class.
Following their respective
burnouts, Adam Sorokin and Troy Green back up to the starting
line.
Johansen and crew make final adjustments and clean
the tires prior to Green staging.
At the hit the tires immediately spun then went up
in smoke. Green caught it right away and shut off. This is the
same result that previous tests of the tires have yielded (i.e.
Brett & Jack Harris) on their first attempts. Early data
suggests that the tire will be better, much better, but will
require some clutch/tune-up changes to make them work on the
bottom end.
Marv Rifchin and John Hashim examine the tire after
the abbreviated run.
Brett Johansen and Jack
Harris examine and discuss the new tires as well.
Roger McMartin and Troy
Green fuel the car prior to the warm-up for the second test run.
Tom Shelar and Brett Johansen prepare the engine
for a start-up.
Green waits patiently.
Shelar hooks up the
remote starter.
With the engine fired,
Shelar checks the timing while Johansen adjusts the idle.
With heat in the engine
Brett does the change over from alcohol to nitro.
.
All is good... ready
for their second shot at the cool Fontana track.
With the engine lit,
Johansen makes an adjustment before sending Green to the water
box.
Green starts the burnout
and once again John Hashim was behind him checking the tire temp.
For this run the team had reverted back to the tires they ran
at the March Meet because they had a tune-up for them that would
tell them what they needed to know about the new girdle.
Green,
having the track all to himself, backs up with the guidance of
Walt Stevens.
Final adjustments made by Johansen as John Hashim
gets one last reading off the tire.
This time the car hooked up and left
hard.
This run was a planned
660' shut-off. Everything went as perfect as possible. They pulled
the motor out Wednesday night following the event and the main
bearings looked like they had never been run. So now the team
is very excited and ready to make some full runs in Boise next
month and they plan to run the new M&H tires.
Check
out the
2007 Schedule
for the teams next appearance.
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