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Sonoma: Kevin Brown Friday pit notes

Joker's Wild Racing K. Brown Motorsports Brown appears to be back "in the groove" SONOMA, Calif. - After fighting mechanical problems with his racecar at his last few races, NHRA Federal Mogul Dragster driver Kevin Brown appears to be close to ...

Joker's Wild Racing
K. Brown Motorsports

Brown appears to be back "in the groove"

SONOMA, Calif. - After fighting mechanical problems with his racecar at his last few races, NHRA Federal Mogul Dragster driver Kevin Brown appears to be close to returning to his early season form when running near record setting runs was the norm for the Clearfield, Utah, based team. After Friday's qualifying at this weekend's Fram-Autolite Nationals at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., Brown currently sits No. 6.

With the apparent cause to his head gasket problems found, Brown feels it is only a matter of time before his A/Fuel Dragster starts running respectable numbers again. His first and only run of 5.582 seconds at only 222.84 mph was far from perfect. He feels there is much room for improvement for today's final qualifying session and first round.

"We went into today very confident we had the head gasket problem fixed," said Brown. "That was our only real concern for today. There's only 15 cars here, so making the field isn't a worry, so we only made one shot. We wasn't trying to go out there and be the No. 1 qualifier, we were just looking for a clean point A to B pass, and have my racecar together on the top end."

"At the hit of the throttle, the car set me back really hard, and I knew at that point, for at least the first 60 feet, I had my old racecar back," continued Brown. "Come to find out, it had went the best 60' time it had ever went, a .917. At about 1.8 seconds into the run, it rattled the tires, I pedaled it, got back in it, then at about 800 ft, it started to nose over, because it obviously didn't like my pedal job. So I clicked it off early. That explains the low mph. The cylinder heads did not get torched, and everything looks great in the motor. I think we're back."

With his 'Point A to B' run behind him, Brown plans to make a shot low e.t. in today's last qualifying session at noon.

"I think the car has No. 1 capability with the tune-up it has on it," stated Brown. "I gave one of my mentors a call after the pass, Steve Watson, from Sudden Impact Racing, a nostalgia top fuel team that is coming together in Utah. Steve has helped us all year with tuning, and he agrees, that from looking at the incrementals, and the computer readings that I was reading to him that we have a very solid 5.30 racecar here, if the track will hold it. The gameplan for Saturday is to leave it alone, because I think if I hadn't of pedaled it, and ran it out the back door, we could have ran a low .40 in that round. Not to be too overzealous, but I think we're back in the groove, and have a car that is to be reckoned with. If they measured it by pure enthusiasm from the crew, I'd be a world champion. These guys just will not let me go down. There just awesome. I think we're going to leave it alone for tomorrow, and hope the track is better."

Final qualifying for the Federal Mogul Dragsters is at noon, and will be followed by first round of eliminations at 3:30 p.m. For more news from the world of Federal Mogul Racing, visit InsideFMRacing.com.

For more information on the team, visit their website at JokersWildRacing.com.

-JWR-

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