UPS Racing: NHRA

Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals - Brainerd, MN

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:49:38 -0500

If you remember from last year Brainerd was the site of the annual golf trip for me and my buddies. This year there was no golf trip. In life we seem to get reality checks when we least expect them. One of my best buddies earlier in the year felt some discomfort in his knee after playing a few days in a row during a golf tournament. upon visiting his doctor to find out the culprit we were all stunned to hear the reason: there was a tumor in his knee.

After undergoing chemotherapy and knee replacement and seemingly on the road to recovery, he developed a blood infection incurred from the final treatments after the knee replacement and just like that he was gone. One week after developing the infection and putting up a fight he passed away.

Reality check #1.

Unfortunately there would be reality check #2.

The son of another member of our group had battled something called OTC deficiency, Urea cycle disorder. While most of these medical terms are hard to understand, what I know about this is it affects the liver and causes increased ammonia levels in your blood. While I am not a doctor I am now aware that that is not a good thing. On a family vacation he complained of not feeling well and they returned back to Atlanta and took him to the Children's hospital. (The Children's Healthcare group of hospitals in Atlanta is one of the best in the country and also is the benefactor of the Vandergriff Foundation.)

In what must be described as hard to comprehend, about a week or so after checking him into the hospital and undergoing various forms of treatment such as dialysis and various medications my buddy's 11-year-old son suffered a massive stroke relating to the medication ... again, just like that he was gone.

Needless to say there was no golf trip this year. It just didn't seem important. I write this blog as a reminder to all of us, even though our season has not been as successful as we had all hoped in life it can always be worse. As bad as I want to win races and get frustrated when we don't, perspective is very important and I am very lucky to have a wonderful wife, two healthy children, and my own health as well.

So in writing this I say enjoy your friends, and hug your kids every chance you get. Life can change in an instant.

Getting back to the race, we seem to be making some progress, although not as fast as we all would like. In qualifying we struggled a bit, ending up 11th. The car was showing some signs early in the run. We were just having problems getting it to the finish line on all eight cylinders. We studied the data and made some changes to help keep all the cylinders lit and got ready for Sunday. Our opponent would be David Grubnic and the dreaded DHL team. It's always nice to win a round but winning one against the DHL car would be very sweet.

As luck would have it the changes we made worked! The car ran on eight cylinders and we made a great run, and actually ran the top speed of eliminations in the process. A round win and putting the DHL car away, things were looking up.

Our second round opponent would be Cory McClenathan and we headed for the starting line pretty confident. We didn't change anything on our set up and just like that our luck reverts back.

Leaving the starting line with an eight hundreths of a second advantage usually means victory, but for some reason our car decided to smoke the tires down track and we lost. To say I was frustrated would be an understatement!

As we run out of time to get ourselves into the countdown we need to take advantage of these opportunities and for whatever reason this year we are not doing that. I can assure everyone that it is not for lack of effort. The UPS team is a very hardworking bunch, they will not be outworked by anyone and when effort translates into results we have a lot in the bank to collect off of.

We will dust ourselves off and head for Reading.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Western Swing - Denver, Seattle and Sonoma

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:49:14 -0500

The western swing is a long grueling string of races. It is hard on everyone, especially the crew members on each team. With a lot of distance to travel in between races and a lot of races in a short period, the guys are really moving.

I will have to say that even though it is difficult it is one of my favorite stretches of races. It is pretty hard to beat the scenery in Denver, Seattle and Sonoma.

Denver brought about a change in how we do things. For the first time we would be racing 1000 feet instead of the standard 1320. I am not a proponent of the switch. I think we should fix the facilities and not change the heritage of our sport as a band aid. I hope the change is only temporary and we go back to the quarter mile next year.

Qualifying in Denver went okay. While we did not run as quick as we would have like we were very consistent and ended up in the 12th spot. Although we were in the bottom half we were not far off the top half times and didn't feel that we were at a disadvantage. We would face Hillary Will in the first and needed a round win very badly.

We made a good run, in fact we ran top speed of eliminations and won with a 4.04 at 306 mph. In the second round conditions got much worse. The air temp went up as well as the track temp. My opponent Antron Brown and I both smoked the tires, and in a race it looked like we were going to win we ended up losing as the blower belt decided it didn't want to stay on. We missed a good opportunity there.

As we got into Seattle I started the week off with a visit to a UPS center in Seattle. Harry Smith, a big drag racing fan arranges a visit every year. I get some time during the morning PCM each year to speak to all the drivers and I really enjoy it. I get to meet a lot of great people this way and turn a few more people into drag racing fans. I even got a chance to visit the office where Harry works and meet a bunch of employees I wouldn't normally get the chance to meet, although there were a few that gave me some good natured grief and if you are reading this I am coming back next year so be ready!

Also in Seattle I decided to do something I have been meaning to do for awhile: get back into cycling. It is a great workout and something I missed. There just never seemed to be enough time, but I am now making time. My buddy and former alcohol dragster and current nostalgia racer Dale Carlson owns some bike shops in the Seattle area and just like that I am now the proud owner of a new carbon Trek road bike. I used to ride with Mike Dunn and Whit Bazemore a lot many years ago but since Whit is not racing anymore it is just me and Mike. (Details on our ride later.)

In qualifying, like in Denver, we weren't the quickest but were reasonably consistent, and although we were not happy with our 14th place position we were again not at a big performance disadvantage. We would once again face Antron Brown, this time in round one. For once, we got a break as we both lost traction. I was able to get our car to recover and take the win but that was the end of our luck.

In round two against Doug Herbert in another tire smoke battle our blower belt decided to leave once again and we lost a race we were ahead in.

To ease the frustration of losing that one the afore mentioned bike ride was scheduled. Mike thought it would be great to take my bike out for a little get acquainted ride and make sure everything worked right and I fit right so when we got to Sonoma I would be ready to go. Well, Mike's idea of a get acquainted ride and mine are a little different as 20 miles later I was really acquainted with my new bike!

In Sonoma, as always, the UPS support is unmatched. We started my week off there playing golf. I got the chance to play with two of my biggest supporters Joe and Mike and the big cheese they all report to out there, Mary Gill, who by the way is a pretty good golfer. We had a great time and I know they aren't going to like me reporting this but Mary beat everyone but me! I followed that up with my normal visit to the Petaluma center where I see the third member of my support group, Dave, who takes care of me like no other and all the other great UPS employees who seem to follow us religiously. It means a lot to see that kind of support especially with us struggling this year.

Heading to the track we qualified better. We made a pretty good run on Friday night that would hold up for the eighth spot. On Saturday we tried a few things and smoked the tires and settled for the eighth spot and would face Larry Dixon in round one. With qualifying behind us it was time for another bike ride, this one off into the hills near Petaluma. While we only increased our distance to 23 miles this time it was much more difficult as there were three pretty intense climbs of around 2 miles each and I could really feel my legs burning as I struggled up each one cursing Mike under my breath the whole way. I guess he doesn't believe in working your way into it. I did make it and am pretty proud that I did, to be good at cycling you must enjoy a little pain and I guess I have always like pushing myself so it's a good fit.

Unfortunately, we lost our first round match up with Larry Dixon on Sunday. We missed the set up and smoked the tires right off the starting line and missed another opportunity to make up some ground. With only three races left we find ourselves a little more than three rounds out of the countdown and really need to make a move. As we head to Brainerd it's time to make that move. Keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals - Norwalk, OH

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:21:30 -0500

We headed to Norwalk with a few different motivations. Mine were for our team to get our program headed back in the right direction and my kids' motivation was to wear out the Cedar Point amusement park and the water slides at our hotel, the Kalahari Resort. I will say that Cedar Point has the best rollercoasters I have ever been on and after some serious coercing I talked my wife into going on the "Maverick" rollercoaster with me. It is by far the best one I have ever been on. After listening to my wife scream the whole ride she did admit that she loved it and actually wanted to go on it again, unfortunately the long line prevented me from finding out if she was serious.

After leaving Cedar Point, which we headed to straight from the airport, we arrived at our hotel. The place is amazing. I think it has twenty or so indoor water slides, from little ones for the small children to some pretty serious ones for the older kids and adults. My oldest daughter Ashley and Rob Flynn's daughter Stacy (Rob is the crew chief on the Hot Rod Fuller driven Caterpillar dragster) have become great friends over the years. In fact she stayed with us the whole weekend in our room instead of theirs and they had a blast. We barely saw them at the race track as they refused to leave the water park, from early in the morning 'till late at night they spent every minute attacking the water slides! My youngest daughter Sydney was a little scared of the big ones and spent most of her time playing on the small slides with Antron Brown's daughter Arianna.

Qualifying was very interesting. Due to some serious rain in the area the past week the racetrack began having water seep up due to the heat, which made the track unsafe to race on. After an exhausting effort, qualifying was cancelled on Friday. After losing two runs on Friday it really changes the approach to qualifying. Knowing you only have two runs makes your approach different and you get conservative, going down the track becomes very important. We made a pretty conservative run and ended qualifying in the ninth position. We would face Tony Schumacher again first round. We usually do okay when facing him in the first round but this time he made a good run and we made an average one and got beat. We now head out on the west coast swing, Denver, Seattle and Sonoma on three consecutive weekends. With the races preceding the countdown to the championship dwindling this is a very important group of races, we are currently about 4 or 5 rounds outside of the cut line for the countdown and we need to get it together now.

Keep up the support for our team, we really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

NHRA SuperNationals - Englishtown, NJ

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:32:39 -0500

We arrived in New Jersey with hopes of our season turning around and left with a bad taste in our mouths.

On Saturday during the final qualifying session we lost a friend.

Scott Kalitta was killed in an accident. A terrible succession of events and an unprepared facility resulted in a tragedy that not only makes me sick to my stomach, it hurts my heart as well. If any of you have watched the television programs or read the Internet websites you know my position on this incident and I will leave it at that for now. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Kalitta family.

We made a good run on Friday, a 4.56 et at a slowing 315 mph as the blower belt exited a bit short of the finish line.

Saturday's qualifying brought a tire smoker on the first run and an aborted run in the last session. During my burnout our front right tire went flat, evidently we ran over something that punctured it ... not good!

We pushed the car off the starting line, changed the front tire and dragged it back to the pits, very disappointed that we didn't get the run as we need all the runs we can get right now.

On Sunday our first round opponent would be Hillary Will. As a member of Team Kalitta, Hillary and all of the Kalitta cars chose to sit out eliminations - a decision we all understand completely.

As a matter of fact there was a good chance we were going to sit them out as well.

With our car struggling the decision was made to run the car. We need all the information we can get right now and since I was not confident in the facility and its shut down area I made the decision to drive it to half track and shut it off as the information we needed would be recorded in the first half of the run.

Our second round opponent would be Brandon Bernstein. We made some changes to our car in hopes of picking up the performance as we knew Brandon would be tough. Unfortunately the changes that were made did not work and we smoked the tires early in the run and lost. Definitely not the results we were looking for and as our season continues to progress we need to get our act together right away to make this year's countdown to the championship.

I want to thank all of you that have taken advantage of purchasing our team merchandise through our website and the UPS Oasis system. The support means a lot.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Route 66 NHRA Nationals - Chicago, IL

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:03:51 -0500

After another disappointing race in Topeka the decision was made to abandon the new combination that was installed in our car at the beginning of the season, we had thought we could take what we had and make it a bit better by changing a few things in the engine and clutch combination.

I guess we were wrong. With about half the initial part of our season behind us we decided the testing would have to end, we can't afford to give away anymore races and should go back to what we know and have had success with, probably a decision that needed to be made a few races ago.

In returning to last year's set up you would think it would be easy to go back but in reality it is a little more difficult than you would think, when you change engine combinations things like connecting rod length and piston height change and you order enough of these components to last quite a while so you are forced to juggle a few things in order to try and replicate what you had before, as far as the clutch department goes you have reverse the changes you have made in how we apply it, flows, weights and on top of all that clutch discs have changed since the previous season and that is always a wild card.

In addition when you did make changes like that you would really like to be able to test them, make a few runs to try and get a baseline before heading to a national event, unfortunately for us with testing not being allowed due to a shortage of nitromethane, the fuel we use to power our cars we would have to go to Chicago cold turkey and use qualifying to get a baseline. I hoped we would get a quick handle on it.

Once again I was wrong. We struggled in qualifying. In trying to get our car back to last year's set up we struggled initially to make power, the conditions were very difficult, high temperatures, a lot of humidity, the corrected altitude was as high as we have seen all year and the car just wouldn't respond to the changes we made and we made slow runs on all of our qualifying attempts. We ended up 16th and that means we would face the #1 qualifier on race day.

As the #1 qualifier Tony Schumacher is always a tough draw, they have been the dominant car in our class for years but for some reason we have faired well against them, especially when we get them first round. We studied our set up made another change that we thought would fix the power problem and got ready for first round. The changes we made did fix the power problem, unfortunately they fixed it too well, it actually made too much power and smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle, Tony had similar problems downtrack and seeing that I jumped back into the gas and tried to chase him down and unfortunately came up just a little bit short. I am hoping that we now have our engine combination back and am cautiously optimistic about heading to Englishtown, we need a good race to get our season on track. As I said in the previous race report our merchandise and team apparel is now available through the UPS Oasis system so all those that have asked please utilize that for your purchases.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals - Topeka, KS

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:08:28 -0500

After leaving the Bristol race I thought we had made some strides to getting our car on track, we ran some very impressive half track speeds and then first round made a really good top end charge of 330 mph. It showed the car was making good power and I hoped that the Topeka race was going to be the start of our turnaround.

I hate to be wrong.

Qualifying started and we had a bug in our car. It wouldn't idle properly on the starting line. It wouldn't do it in the pit area on warm up but once we went up to run and the car did a burnout and backed up it would start going crazy. These cars are very finicky and when the slightest thing is not right it affects everything. With the idle higher than it was supposed to be it starts to affect the clutch, it removes the neutral position and starts heating up the clutch which is very bad.

With the problem on Friday we basically threw away both qualifying runs. We made some changes to address the problem and got ready for Saturday.

Saturday's qualifying was no better. While we addressed the idle problem the car would still not run. If the car ran good early in the run it would either drop cylinders or drop cylinders and throw the blower belt off, as evidenced by our recent string of 4.80 elapsed times at 240 mph.

We ended up qualifying in the 15th position and would face my former little league teammate Cory McClenathan first round. To say we weren't feeling confident would be an understatement. As our season has gone this year our day ended in tire smoke first round. To say we are frustrated would also be an understatement!

After the race we decided to give up on the new combination we were trying to run. We just could not make any headway into developing it something consistent, it would throw us a bone on occasion but that's it.

As we head toward the Chicago race we have decided to return to the combination we ran last year. While it was very hard on parts at least it ran very good. We are going to put it back that way and try and fix the volatility problem. We have about 10 races left before the cutoff to get into the countdown for the championship and we can't afford to give any more races away.

I also want to say to all the UPS employees that have asked about our team merchandise and apparel. It is now available on the UPS Oasis system. It has been up and running there for the last couple of months and has been moving very steadily. Thanks for all the people who have supported our program by purchasing from the site.

On to Chicago ...

Thanks for reading,

Bob

O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals - Bristol, TN

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:37:51 -0500

In returning to Bristol we have some fond memories of last year. We made it to the finals and really could have won the race, unfortunately we smoked the tires after changing lanes to run in the so-called "better lane." We lost to Brandon Bernstein.

The week started off with the annual golf tournament benefiting the Speedway Children's Charity. Last year my team won so I was returning as the defending champion. We had a great time for a great cause and although we didn't win we finished a respectable fourth and I once again won the "long drive." I have won every year and received a golf bag and a nice little trophy so all was not lost.

In preparing for the race we had a brand new race car to get ready. We tested it on the Monday after St. Louis and although the track was very marginal we had some positive feedback.

Qualifying started out with a tire shaker. We made the adjustments for the Friday night run and we rewarded with a 4.63. We were hoping for more but were still working out the bugs on a new car. The 4.63 left us in eighth position heading into Saturday.

On Saturday's first run the car really started to respond. We ran an improved 4.59 at only 313 mph as the car dropped cylinders down track. The fuel curve still isn't right but we ran a great 277 mph charge to half track showing we were starting to get a handle on it. That's the fastest we have run to half track in a long while and was the fastest of anybody so we were encouraged.

Our last session brought more of the same. We were going up there to improve and were in the process of doing it when the dropped cylinders returned and encouraged the blower belt to come off just past half track slowing us to a 4.77 at only 241 mph. Once again the car was charging through the middle, running 276 mph at half track. We knew if we could just get our fuel system straightened out we might have something for them on Sunday.

Our first round opponent on Sunday would be, ironically, Brandon Bernstein. There would be no repeat of last year's final for sure. We were fairly confident that we had something for him and owed him one for last year.

I awoke to the dreaded rain on Sunday. Nothing is worse than rain on race day. We sat around for awhile wondering if we were going to get to race. Some of my buddies from Richard Childress Racing had driven up to watch since they had raced Saturday night in Charlotte. Kevin Harvick and his wife Delana; Todd Berrier, the crew chief on the #29 car; his wife and son; Andy Street, an engineer for that team; and a host of others sat in limbo until the skies cleared enough for us to get started.

As luck would have it, we had an ignition malfunction which caused the car to shake and forced me to get off and on the throttle, which resulted in us losing ... but with a bright side. We have struggled getting the car to run to the finish line lately and the changes we had made worked. No dropped cylinders and a 330 mph speed meant that we are finally on the right track. I am hoping all the new car bugs have been worked out. We ran great to half track and now to the finish line so its looks promising and I am excited to get to Topeka and win some rounds!!!

Thanks for reading,

Bob

O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals - Madison, IL

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:16:12 -0500

After coming off a semi-final round finish in Atlanta we headed to St. Louis with some momentum. We seemed to make some progress in getting our car turned around and headed in the right direction.

Qualifying started off slowly. We didn't make it down the track on either attempt Friday. In Atlanta we were having trouble dropping cylinders and made a couple of changes in St. Louis to try and fix the problem, unfortunately the changes we made had a negative effect on the engine power level and led to the aborted runs on Friday.

After fixing the power level problem we actually made a pretty good run on our first qualifying attempt Saturday, running a 4.56 at 323 mph, a step in the right direction and that put us in the number eight position. After looking at the computer information we were pleased to see that the car responded to the changes we made and, even though we didn't really have the car tuned up, it made a good run and gave us some confidence heading into the last session.

On our final qualifying attempt we made another decent run. We had a small problem at the finish line and slowed to a 4.59 at only 297 mph but the car was showing promise. We ended up 11th on the qualifying ladder and would face Larry Dixon in round one.

Sunday morning is always a nail-biter. Race day really gets the butterflies going in everyone. Even though we were still struggling I thought we had a good chance heading to eliminations. We had started to see some progress with the cars performance and you are always just one run away from turning around your season. We ended up being the last pair of cars to run and that really builds the drama, sitting around and watching everyone else run gives you a lot of time to wonder about the decisions you have made.

As things turned out we are going to have to wait another race to get our season turned around. After building a big lead against Dixon our car lost the blower belt at the 1000 foot mark allowing Dixon to drive around me at the finish line and edge us out.

It was a very disappointing defeat. To be ahead and on your way to victory and then have the blower belt break and lose is tough to swallow. We are going to stay after the race and test our new car on Monday. It is from a different manufacturer and we have high hopes for it.

In my next report I will let you know how the testing went.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals - Atlanta, GA

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:10:09 -0500

Racing in your hometown is always a challenge. There are many great things about it: your friends, family and everyone you may have ever met gets to come to the races, the downside is that everyone you have ever met gets to come to the races!

It is quite an undertaking to make sure everyone has tickets, parking passes, and enjoys themselves. In addition to those responsibilities you also have remember one thing: you are there to race.

My week started off with the usual media responsibilities that come from racing in your hometown - do some radio interviews, a couple of television spots about the upcoming race, an appearance at the ESPN zone here in Atlanta and then the pre race press conference, which is always nice because we are served lunch from Ruth's Chris Steak House. Hard to beat that.

Qualifying started off with a tire-smoking run. Track conditions were a bit iffy for the first session and while we tried to just make a conservative run we smoked the tires anyway. The second qualifying session brought a little better result. We were conservative in our set up and were rewarded with a safe run of 4.72, which put us in the 10th spot after the first day of qualifying.

On Saturday we continued to struggle. We just do not have a handle on our race car and didn't improve. We actually dropped to the 13th position. We would face Larry Dixon in round one on Sunday.

On Sunday we awoke to vastly different conditions than the ones we had in qualifying: overcast skies, rain clouds and an extremely tight track because of the weather change. We just didn't have enough for the track first round, fortunately my opponent was in the same boat. We both shook the tires and I was fortunate to recover quicker and took the win light, setting up a battle between the UPS dragster and my buddy JR Todd.

When your team is struggling every member has to do a little extra to try and help where they can. Second round the driver helped out with a great reaction time and we were able to beat JR with a slower elapsed time. Winning on a holeshot is very sweet for a driver. You hate to do it to one of your buddies but on raceday friendships stay on the sidelines.

We would face and lose to Antron Brown in the semi finals. Antron is doing a great job and as bad as our car is performing right now theirs is the opposite. We tried to step up the performance for Antron and while we did, we were actually dead even at half track, our car stumbled again in the back half of the race track and Antron pulled ahead for the victory.

While we are still disappointed in our performance, we were very fortunate to steal a couple of round wins in Atlanta and those could be the key to helping us get into the countdown later in the year. I know our car is capable of winning races once we get back on track. Our team is working very hard to put us back into that position and I expect we will have a handle on the car shortly and start making a charge. Once again thanks for all the support our team receives, it means a lot, especially when you are struggling.

To be able to hear all the well wishes and encouragement from all of the UPS employees goes a long way in helping to keep everyone's chin up and to serve as a reminder to keep digging.

On to St. Louis.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals - Las Vegas, NV

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:44:01 -0500

The UPS team headed to Vegas with high hopes of starting the turn-around to our season. Unfortunately it didn't quite happen. We had struggled in Gainesville and stayed around and tested on Monday afterward and felt like we had made some progress.

We unloaded our car and prepared for qualifying only to be bit by the same problems we had been facing: the dreaded dropped cylinders! You have to remember when you have an engine that makes 8000 horsepower if you drop a cylinder there goes 1000 horsepower out the window. It makes it difficult to run well when you don't have all 8 cylinders lit.

When you are struggling and then you are thrown a curveball the way we were in Las Vegas it just adds to your misery. We have raced down some pretty marginal racetracks this season, but Vegas was as bad as any of them.

Every team struggled getting down the racetrack. Track preparation has been a hot topic this season. The theory is there is a lot less going on because of the fear of tearing up tires, but I can assure they are missing it on the wrong side by a mile.

Qualifying ended with us in the 11th spot. We basically detuned the car so much it felt like it took forever to get to the finish line.

On race day my buddy Kevin Harvick and his wife flew over from their race in Phoenix. They had raced on Saturday night and with the close proximity they took the opportunity to come over and watch us. We are working on a pretty exciting program and it could be a really good deal for drag racing. As things develop I will keep you all informed.

On race day we faced the hotter than a pistol Antron Brown. I knew we were at a performance disadvantage and tried to help out a little too much and red lighted. I just missed a green light by a little, but it wouldn't have mattered as he ran me down anyway and took the win light. All in all a pretty lousy weekend for the UPS team. We will keep on flogging it until we get it straightened out. We are going to go testing to speed up the process and we will give everything we have until this ship is back on track.

See you in Atlanta!

Bob

O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals - Houston, TX

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:50:23 -0500

I guess I will start off with a positive: it didn't rain! After that not much good came from our weekend in Houston. I know I have mentioned before that we realized we needed to make some changes to our combination in order to go the next performance level, well we have made those changes and unfortunately it is taking a bit longer than we all had hoped to see the results.

We struggled in qualifying, finally sliding the car down a horrible race track during the last session to get into the field. I don't think we have ever tried on purpose to run that slow but the conditions, both the weather - hot and muggy - and the terrible track conditions, dictated it. The conditions Friday were difficult and the evening session is where everyone ran well, so when we missed it during the night session we knew we had our hands full when Saturday brought bright sunshine to a very marginal racetrack.

Our race day ended early, losing first round. I think we missed the set up but the track conditions certainly played a big part of our loss. Brandon Bernstein and Rod Fuller right in front of us did the same thing - smoked the tires immediately after the hit of the throttle - so I believe we never had a chance. The left lane was tricky all day as we saw a lot of cars throughout the day do the same thing. I hope they fix that place before we get back there next season.

I would like to explain something that will help you understand our slow start. At the end of last season we realized that we needed to get our car to move much harder in the early part of the racetrack. We couldn't afford to keep being 4 hundredths of a second slower to half track than the other top cars and hope we could make it back up in the back half of the run by running 330+ miles an hour and chase them down. We thought if we could pick it up early and keep the way the car ran in the back half of the racetrack we could be really be tough to beat.

The old adage of saying that sometimes you have to take a step back to make steps forward comes to mind here. We have taken a step back and decided to take our lumps for a race or two and try and make the big jump forward. We hired an assistant crew chief to come in and help Jim Dupuy. Our new assistant Keith Adams has experience in making cars run very quick early in the run, all of the cars he has worked on in the past have been one of the quickest, if not the quickest, cars in the class during the early part of the track. In doing so we have had to make some changes to some parts we run and our thought process and trying to do this and lose runs due to weather has only slowed down the process.

I think we have started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Trying to combine theories has been a little difficult but I believe in Houston we finally got on the same page. We saw some good progress and actually stayed over on Monday to test to help speed up the changes.

I think we will see the benefits coming to light at our next race in Las Vegas. If you remember last year the Vegas race is where our season really started to turn for the better. We raced to our first final round of the season there and I am hoping the trend continues this season, this time with a win.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

ACDelco NHRA Gatornationals - Gainesville, FL

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:55:47 -0500

Stop me if this sounds familiar... It rained again at the races. I don't know what it is, but these cities and states that brag about their fantastic weather are taking a big hit these days.

Our visit to the sunshine state began Thursday in Jacksonville at the UPS hub facility. We were invited to attend the facility, have the car on display and for me to address the drivers before they began their day. The facility is huge, over 3,000 employees on site and trucks as far as the eye can see. We had a great time and a great deal of employees got to look at our top fuel dragster up close and personal, buy some merchandise and generally share their support for our team. I want to say thanks and a tip of the cap to QJ Arnold at UPS for arranging the visit.

After the display we headed an hour down the road to Gainesville to begin our preparation for the Gatornationals.

Here is where the story starts to sound familiar: a beautiful day on Thursday and rain all day on Friday. Not just any rain but a cold rain. I don't believe the temperature ever hit 50 degrees and a miserable day lead to a washout on Friday. No professionals hit the track on Friday, putting the pressure back on everyone as we would go into Saturday with two qualifying attempts to make the show.

The big difference from the Phoenix race was in Phoenix we made a good run right off the bat and were safely in the field. That allowed us to step on it for the second session. The problem in Gainesville was we missed it on the first run badly and smoked the tires. This created two problems: one we weren't qualified, and two we would be running in the front of the session for session number two because of our poor effort.

I have seen this scenario play out more times than I can remember, a team sets their car up soft so they can go down the track and qualify and are able to do it. Then, because of their early running in the session, they end up setting it up too soft as the cars behind them go quicker and bump them out. So you are faced with a dilemma, just how soft do you want to go up there? Do you try and go quicker to make sure that doesn't happen?

Well we tried to go a bit quicker than the track would allow and smoked the tires, ending our weekend. I can't even to begin tell you how disappointed I and the entire team were. We messed up badly on the set up and decided to stay on Monday and test to try and create a bigger window for our car so we would be more successful going down marginal racetracks. I think we made some big strides on Monday as far as the setup goes and think we created a bigger platform for our team to be successful at future races. We now head to Houston with high hopes of getting our season back on track and returning to the form we showed at the end of last season.

Watch us this weekend and we will see together if we are headed down the right track!

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Checker Schuck's Kragen NHRA Nationals - Phoenix, AZ

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:34:44 -0500

I know everyone is familiar with the phrase good new and bad news, well I guess that is the best way to sum up the race in Phoenix.

The weekend started off with the bad news: rain. It rained all day Friday. Now, everyone says it never rains in Phoenix but I beg to differ. When we were there a month ago for testing it rained all day one day and we lost a day of testing. Then it rained all day on the Friday of the race, washing out another full day. You are going to have a hard time convincing me of the "it never rains in Phoenix" thing!

I think it changes the dynamics of the weekend a great deal when you lose qualifying on Friday, when you are faced with only having two runs to qualify instead of the normal four your game plan changes dramatically. It is especially difficult when you are sorting out a new combination and need all the runs you can get to help get your car straightened out.

Your mindset goes immediately to "lets just get it down the track so we don't go into the last session not qualified" instead of the normal thought process of going as quick as the conditions allow. Instead of the car being on the edge you back it off and not take any chances.

Here is where the "good news" starts. Well, I guess some good with a little bad. Our first qualifying attempt had the car going down the track very well until once again it threw the blower belt off - the engine is still not happy. It ran a 4.64 at only 260 mph which put us 7th after the first session and safely in the field.

When you are safely in the field you can be more aggressive and we were on the last run. We ran a pretty good 4.54 at 329 mph which was better. The engine was still not happy and hurt itself. The good news is that it ran 329 mph, the blower belt stayed on and we think based on the fact that it went 329 and was not happy it should really run fast when we get it figured out. We are guessing the thing may really surprise some people by running upwards of 336-337 mph!!!

We ended up in the 7th qualifying position and would face Cory McClenathan first round. Cory and I used to play little league together back in California. He was coming off a final round appearance at the last race so we knew would have our hands full.

The good news-bad news theme continued in round 1 on Sunday. While the good news is we got the win light, the car only ran a 4.59. The bad news was it ran very slow through the middle of the track and we didn't know why. We made some changes for our second round opponent David Grubnic to try and fix the problem and hoped for the best.

The bad news once again is we didn't fix the problem. In fact it got worse. The car slowed to a 4.62, was even worse through the middle, and we got blasted by Grubnic's great 4.49. When we got back from the run and downloaded the computer we were really dumbfounded by what we saw. After discussing it for a while, we have decided it must be an ignition problem. And as I stare out into the shop right now I can see the guys stripping the car from one end to the other. We are going to replace everything on the car relating to the ignition system and get our act ready for the Gainesville race coming up in two weeks.

I do feel we are making some progress on getting the car to run very well. Sometimes when you make changes in an effort to improve you take one step backwards for every two you take forward and we are definitely doing that now. We may try and test the car out if we are able to before the Gainesville race, just to make sure we have found the source of our problem. As tough as Top Fuel series is right now we can't afford to come to any race unsure of our performance.

Thanks for reading,

Bob

CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals - Pomona, CA

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:50:50 -0500

Not the start of the season we were hoping for. As you all know at the end of last year the UPS Top Fuel Dragster was running pretty quick and very fast. Unfortunately it had a short fuse! A 330 mph plus run was usually accompanied by a blown up engine, a problem we needed to get fixed over the winter and one we tried to address in pre-season testing.

As part of our preparation for the 2008 season we were handed some new rules by NHRA, the back half of the cars were strengthened by utilizing larger diameter tubing, and we were also allowed to increase the percentage of nitromethane we run to 90% from last year's 85% .

As we spent the off season getting our car ready we contemplated some changes to fix the engine damage - a reduction in the amount of compression we were running seemed to be the logical fix to remedy the short fuse. We also figured we could make up for the power loss from the compression reduction by the increase in nitro percentage. With this in mind we headed to Phoenix for pre-season testing to see how close we were.

As we began our testing we realized the increase in nitro percentage overcame the compression reduction by a lot more than we anticipated. We continued to have problems calming our car down enough to successfully go down the track, and to top it off we lost a day of testing due to rain. With Pomona rapidly approaching and not enough time to get the new combination figured out a decision was made to put it back as close as possible to the way we ran it at the end of last season. While this seems like a simple move it actually isn't. Not to bore you with too many technical details, but when we reduced the compression in the engine it was done with changes to length of connecting rods, piston heights, etc. And since we blew up everything we had at the last race, we did not have any of the old pistons and rods available to put back in the engine. So we had to adapt a few things such as the thickness of head gaskets to try and get back to square one.

The last day of testing brought some progress and we finished up by running a rather conservative 4.53 elapsed time at a whopping 334.48 mph - the fastest run I have ever made. At least we would head to Pomona with some momentum.

In Pomona we learned that the new combination we were running, even taking into consideration that we tried to get it as close to last years as we could, still made more power. Run after run we continued fighting a loss of traction as the motor was way stronger. We made it into the field on a last ditch effort. We just wanted to go down the track so we detuned the engine a huge amount and ran a 4.59. That would have been a 4.53 had the blower belt not come out at 1000 feet, once again showing us that while we thought we had backed the motor down it still was making great power and showed us that we were still probably over center all weekend.

Our first round opponent was Morgan Lucas, and he had been running pretty good and very consistent all weekend. We decided to take it up there just as we ran it on the last qualifying run and unfortunately the track was warmer and we smoked the tires once again. The car made too much power for the conditions and we got beat. In talking with several other crew chiefs we all came to the same conclusion: with the new rules in effect the changes that we make to the motors have to be bigger than before. I listened to the same story time after time - we made changes to slow the car and down and it didn't even matter, the engine was just stronger.

As we head to Phoenix this weekend we are already adjusting our mindset to the changes we make. They will have to be bigger to have any effect and we know we need some more runs to get a baseline. I am hoping that can be accomplished quickly and I am optimistic about our chances in Phoenix. I can tell you it won't be for lack of effort. The UPS Racing Team is the hardest working bunch in the pits and will do whatever it takes to get us in contention. Keep your fingers crossed for us, and watch this weekend on ESPN 2. Once again thanks for all the support, I got to see a large UPS employee base in Pomona and look forward to meeting everyone in Phoenix.

Thanks for reading,

Bob