VIPsports Drag Racing Commerce summary

VIPsports.com Looks Ahead--

Milford, Michigan. The VIPsports.com Top Alcohol Funny Car team went to the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals, this past weekend, with the single-minded purpose of winning. However, as team owner Frank Parker put it, "Everyone has the occasional poor weekend." The blue and white Dodge Stratus was on the trailer after the first round of eliminations

Parker and his crew lost valuable tune-up time chasing an elusive ignition problem. Instead of tuning to improve on a good qualifying run, they were troubleshooting just to make a good run. By the time the errant electrons were tracked down, there were no more runs left to dial in the rest of the car. Danny Townsend's best qualifying effort, a 5.827 pass at 250.41 mph, was good only for the seventh spot in the field.

The first elimination round pitted the VIPsports.com car against the Monte Carlo of Marty Northstein, the Olympic Gold Medal cyclist turned drag racer. Townsend took a good lead, at the light, but Northstein pedaled from behind for a slightly better run. In what NHRA called "a great drag race," Northstein managed to eke out the win by a margin of .0043 second or, approximately, nineteen inches. Although it's good to be part of "a great drag race," losing it by any margin is disappointing. Parker commented that, "The advantage of running more races than last year is now obvious. This race was a let-down, but we are still in contention and there are enough races left to put us in a season's-end top position."

With Atlanta behind them, the team is looking ahead to May 25 -- 28 and their next event, the O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals, in Topeka, Kansas.

-www.challengerconsultingllc.com