KARAMESINES QUALIFIES FOR EPPING FIELD

Drag racing legend Chris Karamesines made a 4.885/296.50 run to get into the eight-car Top Fuel field at the IHRA Amalie Oil North American Nationals in Epping, NH. "The Greek" got an additional $1,000 Torco bonus for his qualifying position. Not bad for 75 years old. When he reaches that age, the Agent will be happy just to be able to change his own Depends. (Jeff Burk photo) [9-13-2005]

 

ELLIS, SMITH TO BE G SQUARED TEAMMATES

Chip Ellis, who was runner-up in the Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle, a special bonus race at Indy, and Matt Smith, the winner-then-runner-up of the U.S. Nationals, will be G Squared Motorsports teammates for the three remaining Pro Stock Motorcycle events on this year's NHRA POWERade schedule.

Skull Gear and Torco Race Fuels stepped up their involvement and along with Red Line Oil will back Smith and his G Squared S&S-powered Buell for the remainder of the 2005 season, beginning at this weekend's 21st annual NHRA Toyo Tires Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, near Reading, PA.

"I think that the combination of Ellis and Smith will be a hard duo to beat over the remainder of this year's schedule," said George Bryce, co-owner of G Squared Motorsports. "We look forward to sharing the data from two bikes at Reading and feel that this will put us on more even footing with the other two-bike teams. We've been dyno testing here at our shop since Indy and will have both bikes ready to go. We've learned a lot, especially with Chip's new ride that he debuted at Indy. We expect both bikes to do better at Maple Grove." [9-13-2005]

NHRA TV VIEWERS UP DOUBLE DIGITS. . .NOT!

The NHRA PR folks have been telling everyone that will listen, including most of the straight media types, that NHRA's television viewership is up double digit numbers from the 2004 season. Well, not according to the industry standard for the broadcast industry. Joyce Julius recently released their figures for the number of households watching NHRA shows and the numbers aren't good. To get the complete details check out DRO West Coast Editor/Media Guru Darr Hawthorne's column in this issue. [9-13-2005]

A CLOSE CALL FOR PROJECT 4-LINK!

DRO Bracket Editor Jok Nicholson had a close call a couple of Sunday's back while testing DRO's Jim Pulliam-built "Project 4-Link" dragster for George Howard's upcoming Million Dollar race at Memphis. After making an eighth-mile lap Nicholson was coasting to the turn-off when he noticed a wobble in the right front wheel. Just before the turn-off the A-arm on that side of the dragster BROKE IN TWO and the car ground to a halt. After inspecting the broken piece he then inspected the left side arm and found a two-inch crack along the weld on the bottom side of the tubing.

"I look at those pieces all the time but I wasn't looking under the tube," said Nicholson. It turned out that the tubing itself failed, not the weld.

Without time to replace both components before the race Nicholson opted to run his son's "Back 2 Basic" dragster at the "Million". We'll be doing a tech piece in the near future on how to really inspect the tubing of a race car. [9-13-2005]