National: Tony Bartone Baytown preview

BARTONE AND JACKSON BOYS READY FOR BAYTOWN ASSULT

Baytown, Texas - After nearly 30 days away from a drag strip, the Rick Jackson Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car team is itching to return to NHRA competition this weekend during the 23rd running of the O'Reilly NHRA Springnationals contested in the oxygen-rich air environment of Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas.

The Santa Clarita, Calif. based Centre Pointe Collision Center/FireIce.com TAFC team enters this event with a bit of a chip on their shoulder after a lack-luster DNQ at last year's event. And for team owner Rick Jackson, the lightning quick HRP facility is the perfect place for his team to seek some redemption.

"Quite frankly we really fell flat on our faces here last season," noted the owner of the potent Centre Pointe / FireIce.com Ford Mustang Alcohol burning flopper. "After we won the marathon 6-day NHRA Winternationals last year, we came into this race expecting to dominate, but we sure got a taste of humble-pie as we failed to qualify. The key with these cars is to get a good base-line qualifying effort right out of the box and last year we did not accomplish this goal. We will focus on hitting a few singles instead of swinging for the fences in qualifying and hopefully we will be racing on Sunday."

The Jackson Racing team is coming off the postponed NHRA Division 7 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Az. During this event the team experienced some mechanical gremlins which produced an off-pace number eight qualified position. The team began the season with a number one qualified effort at the 50th running of the NHRA Winternationals. However, a semi-final loss to eventual race runner-up Doug Gordon inspired 31-time NHRA National Event winning driver Tony Bartone and his crew chief Steve Boggs to get back on track at the teams next National event.

"When you lose a race by simply getting out performed, it bugs at you until you get back out there," noted Bartone, who returned to his roots in the NHRA's sportsman categories last year after a successful campaign as the driver Jim Dunn's AA / Funny Car. "Phoenix was cancelled thankfully so we'll just pretend it didn't happen. This weekend in Houston is our return to the track and we owe this place our best effort. I am confident Steve and the boys will tune our Centre Pointe/FireIce.com to performance we expect."

-source: rick jackson racing