Courtesy Jeff Burk
The Summit Racing Equipment-backed Pro Mod team of owner/tuner/engine builder Jim Oddy and driver Al Billes have been the dramatic act of IHRA Pro Mod racing so far this year. In the three 2005 IHRA National Event races held so far they have raced and qualified two entirely different race cars, a Tim McAmis-built '53 'Vette and a Jerry Bickel-built '05 Dodge Stratus. They have qualified on the last lap at every event, and then usually qualified at or near the top and set the track or national speed record in the process.
Despite their struggles they have managed to go enough rounds to put their Summit Racing Equipment-backed supercharged team solidly into second place in IHRA World Championship points just 15 points behind nitrous racer and 2003 IHRA Pro Mod Champ, Shannon Jenkins.
The Elma, NY-based team's trials and tribulations at the just completed IHRA ACDelco Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park is a mirror image of how the season has gone so far.They failed to get down the track on their first two attempts and that left them their usual (this season) one shot qualifying scenario on Saturday morning. The only difference this time was that on their last unsuccessful qualifying attempt, Friday night, the car shook so badly it damaged the rear suspension.
"We didn't have all of the parts we needed in the trailer so we worked until 4:00 in the morning straightening, fabricating and borrowing enough parts to fix the car and take it to the starting line, Saturday morning, for the last qualifying session," said Jim Oddy.
On that lap Billes drove the Dodge Stratus to a 6.169/234.94 elapsed time which broke the existing VMP track speed record. On the next lap the team broke the track ET record and re-set the IHRA national speed record for Pro Mods with a 6.129/236.22 lap. They then came back and ran another 'teen at over 235 mph.
In the semi's the drama returned for the team as Billes stepped off of the clutch with a reaction time of .040 to Shannon Jenkins' .066! Billes was pullingaway when the engine broke a rod at around the 1000-ft mark and coasted overthe finish line recording a 6.194 ET at just 215.48. In the other lane Jenkins charged to a 6.172/228.07. Billes got to the finish line just four-thousandths of a second before Jenkins. Unfortunately, the engine damage was bad enough that the Oddy Racing team couldn't make the call for the final round, allowingMike Janis and his supercharged Dodge Stratus to single for the win.
The runner-up finish for the Summit Racing Equipment-backed team pushed them into second place, just 15 markers behind Shannon Jenkins. They would have been tied with Jenkins but when they broke the rod they oiled the track down past the finish line and the penalty for that infraction was 15 valuable HootersCup points. Well, what else would you expect for the most dramatic team in Pro Mod?
The next stop for the team is June 4-5 at the "Super Summit" at Summit Racing Equipment World Headquarters in Columbus, Ohio followed by the IHRA Mopar Canadian Nationals at Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada June 10-11 and the AMS Staff Leasing NHRA race at Englishtown, New Jersey June 17-19.
No comments:
Post a Comment