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* Rockingham 2004 Race Report * |
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Rockingham holds a special place in this racers heart. I made my first pass down a drag strip here, I finished #3 nationally here, I took delivery of my current chassis here, it's a fast surface and it is only 3 hours from home. This year, Mike and Brenda were there with us, TO RACE! TEST AND TUNE! The first pass off the trailer, with the clutch set-up I put in it a day before, yielded a 9.95 second pass, the quickest pass I have ever made and we believe the quickest pass EVER on a naturally aspirated, gasoline only, 1200cc Sportster powered bike!!! Even the ever calm Sue was excited! The best part, though, was that Maura Hall of Zipper's Performance (my sponsor) was in the other lane and now has a permanent paper record of that pass! On the next 2 passes, the bike ran a pair of 10.22 second passes, right where I wanted to be on the 10.30 index. QUALIFYING!! The first two passes in qualifying yielded another pair of 10.22 second times. For the third pass, I dialed back the rev limiter and the bike slowed to a 10.42. I was in the show and feeling a quiet confidence going into Sunday. Doctor Mike did pretty good as well, improving his times over the last outing by half a second or more and hitting the tree pretty consistently. Team Zipper's qualified all entries in the show as well. Yes, there was excitement in the air. On Saturday evening, Allen and Cindy hosted a BBQ for all the Super Sport racers with some of the best pulled pork I have ever tasted. For our contribution, we brought one of mama Shirley's legendary pound cakes. When I tell you they liked the plate clean, it is no exaggeration, just ask Steve Moore. He came later and did not even get a crumb! ELIMINATIONS!!! I'm always nervous going into the first round on Sunday morning. No racer wants to go out in the first round but the sad truth is that half do. This half did not! In staging, I bumped into, out of and into the final stage beam, accidentally, but was fortunate enough to do it before the tree was activated and avoided the red light. My opponent, however, did not avoid the red light and we sailed into round #2 with yet another 10.22 second pass. This was the 5th pass at 10.22 seconds we made on the weekend! Round #2 was no less nerve racking. Virtually every racer in this class can be unbeatable on any given day. This had to have been the closest race of the entire event as I ran a 10.301 against my opponent's 10.302! Cutting good lights paid off again. In round 3, I cut a .010 light and took a hole shot win! I was on a roll like a freight train on a 50 mile run. I kept telling myself, "This is just like test and tune at Greer, you're just making passes." In the semi-finals, I had GW Bass. Now GW and I have raced each other quite a few times this year and I know that he can kick my butt at least 50% of the time, but today, I came out on top. That round win came with the added bonus of my first TV interview! The Outdoor Channel was filming the event with a 5 camera crew. It will be on the air in December. In the Finals, I had David Hope. David has been coming on very strong over the last half of the season. I cut a .012 light against him and we were close all the way down the track. In the end, I took the finish line and the victory in a double breakout win! Wanna guess what my ET was? How's a 10.22 sound?!?!? That's right, the 6th one of the weekend! I also got the second TV interview in my career! What a way to end the season. It was really special to have Zipper's Performance's Maura Hall there helping and encouraging us all weekend long. I'm not sure who was more excited, me, Sue or Maura! This win catapults us to the #7 spot nationally. I'm hoping we stay in the top ten after Las Vegas as we will be unable to attend. Doctor Mike did pretty darn good as well in the ET class going to his first ever quarter final round! Congratulations Mike, you get an AHDRA paycheck! The sad part about the Rockingham race is that it means, for us anyway, the end of the racing season for the next 4 months. We made some new friends this year in the pits and hopefully in the stands, and strengthened other friendships. In as much as we like to race, we equally enjoy the camaraderie and fellowship amongst the racers and really truly appreciate all the race fans that take time to visit with us. We sincerely appreciate all of you taking the time to follow our progress this year and look forward to a lot more excitement next year with a few new tricks up our sleeve. We'll have periodic updates as the winter progresses. We ended up finishing #5 in the East, and #10 Nationally. Look for MAVRIK Racing again next year racing Super Sport with the AHDRA and occasionally, Super Gas with Pro Star. Please stay tuned for more! And THANKS for visiting the MAVRIK Racing pages!
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