We had an awesome weekend & the car is back on track, the new converter was the ticket……It was an 1/8 mile track & it ran a 5.51 first pass. 5.48 the second pass & a 6.60 in the final against the Scheid rail, neither one of us had our turbos spooled when the light went green & we both left the line soft. Our chargers lit at the 100` mark & my competitor went sideways when his chargers lit. That puts this team at 6 & 2 vs the quickest diesel in the world & also makes it the winningest diesel in the Pro dragster class. It was not a pretty win but sometimes the guy that screws up the least comes out on top….LOL. This event had 15,000 tickets sold & many more just hanging in the parking lot, the exposure was very good & It is has been the largest diesel event we have attended to date.
As we were driving to the event we did a re cap of the events , miles traveled & people we have talked to. So far we gave been to 11 races & 18,000 miles added to our odometer on the freightliner. There is no good way to tell how many people we have been in contact with but it's got to be a lot. There are 2 more events on the schedule, The ORiley Fall Nationals in Ennis which is on Sept 24,25,26 & the Big Rig show in Charlotte NC. on Oct 8 & 9.

      

Hoek Takes another Podium in Round 10 in Chicagoland
Fights for 4th place in Round 9
 
Holland, MI (August 30, 2010) - The Ross Hoek Motorsports #21 Allstar Performance, Venom Energy, Royal Purple, BFGoodrich, Ford Ranger had its best performance of the 2010 season in the Traxxas TORC Series from Chicagoland.  The orange Ford nearly pulled off back to back PRO-Light podium finishes in the inaugural TORC event at Route 66 Raceway and provided the best racing action of the PRO-Light division.
 
The first of its kind mid-week, two evening TORC event at Chicagoland Speedway brought out the largest PRO-Light field of the year to race on TORC's best purpose-built stadium style track of the year. The.8 mile layout included fast sections with six high flying jumps, but it also included a tricky camelback jump, a high and long flying tabletop, a mogul section and a rhythm section. The layout appeared to be a Supercross track for four wheeled vehicles. The course received high praise from most every driver.
 
Wednesday Evening - Round 9
A solid qualifying run had Ross and his #21 Allstar Performance Ford Ranger starting third thanks to a solid qualifying lap. It took two attempts before the class could get a clean first lap, due to two separate rollovers. Fortunately Ross avoided all the mayhem, but fell back a couple spots in the process. Undaunted, Ross quickly moved back into third place by the fifth lap. The top three racers solidly held their positions to the halfway point of the sixteen lap event.
 
When the field went back to green flag racing after the midway mandatory yellow, Ross began to feel pressure from #29 Rayford. The two battled back and forth, fender to fender. With three laps to go, Rayford made an inside pass to take the position. Then on the final lap Ross used all the Ford power he had through his ATD transmission into his BFGoodrich tires and made a bold move through the rhythm section. At one point, the #21 Ford regained the spot, but there was too much speed for the Ford Ranger to hold through the final corner. At the checkered flag, Ross Hoek finished a hard fought fourth place.
 
"Man that was tough," remarked Ross Hoek. "We had Rayford coming through the whoops, but he got just in front of me coming out the corner and won the drag race to the finish. The last lap showed me I can carry more speed through the infield and I'll use that to my advantage tomorrow night."
 
Thursday Evening - Round 10
The next night saw Ross quickly put the Allstar Performance Ford Ranger into second place. Ross ran consistent lap times and held off #43 Cadell through most of the event, but a late charge by the #43 put Ross in the third spot. The top three trucks gradually distanced themselves from the rest of the field when the sixteen lap feature ended. Round 10 was Ross' third podium finish of the season.
 
"We really have this Allstar Performance, Venom Energy, Royal Purple, BFGoodrich, Ford Ranger running great," noted Ross Hoek. "Now we can fine tune the setup for each track we go to. Next week is our second visit to Crandon for the year and the season finale.  The championship chase is down to a two truck competition, all we can do at Crandon is win and that is our goal.  My first Pro-2WD win was a Crandon World Championship, I can't think of a better way to get my first PRO-Light win."

      

The 2010 Nitrolympics were celebrating 25 years of the event on the now re-named Rico Anthes Quartermile at the Hockenheimring Germany, one of the 2 venues that hosts the Formula 1 German Grand Prix.

Racing at Hockenheim involves a lot more planning and organisation than when we are “at home” at Santa Pod. To begin with virtually the whole contents of the workshop have to be loaded into the trailer to ensure we have every eventuality covered. Then it’s a 600Km each way trip to the track for the truck and trailer. The journey started at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning for John and Lee, who were sharing the driving, with Jo accompanying them. They arrived at the track at Wednesday evening then spent Thursday setting up the pit. We had pit box 4, which at the F1 race had been home to Mercedes F1 with Michael Schumacher.

The rest of the team, with the exception of Crew Chief Bob, flew in to Frankfurt on Thursday afternoon and headed for the track. Bob was due in Friday morning.

As we were not scheduled to run on Friday, there was a planned schedule to cover prior to warming the car up as for a final check. You can see the checklist on the “ Live Report” we did at the time. Our plan to post frequent updates on the website actually worked out quite well thanks to our good friend and webmaster, Nigel Holland.

Saturday is the focus of the event because of the legendary “ Niteshow”. We would be “match racing” against the Shockwave FC. It is a very long day for everyone involved. The running order had us down to run at 10.45 a.m, and in a change to previous years, 8.00pm to open the “Niteshow”, rather than close it. We may get a relatively early night this year!

The car was warmed up around 9 a.m, then tow down to the pairing lanes around 10.15 . Unfortunately the running order was re-scheduled so we did not get to run until just after 1pm

Tog on www.eurodragster.com described the runs as follows:

“ That was the best Fuel FC race I’ve seen in a long while, nice one guys! 0.963 to sixty for Gordon,0.970 for Spuff. Gordon had the better eighth 3.547 to 3.540,some smoke from the Showtime FC at about 1100ft and Spuff was off the throttle,but got there first”

(The above reproduced by kind permission of eurodragster.com)

5.194 secs at 445.57kph for John to Gordon’s 5.273 secs at 406.47kph

John’s run was the quickest ever by a Nitro FC at Hockenheim

Servicing was routine, although there was damage to an exhaust seat. We replaced both heads during re-build.

As we were due to open the Niteshow, being late was not an option, so everything was ready to go well ahead of time and we took our place behind the start. Janet Linke the Niteshow organiser briefed us on the timings. We should be ready to fire up before the National Anthem, whilst it was playing skydivers would descend, when the anthem finished and the skydivers landed we were to fire up the car. It all went to plan, as did the run! Even quicker than the first – 5.127 secs at 473.02kph, like an arrow, straight down the groove.

Servicing was a repeat of earlier, and the hoped for early night came our way. The crew enjoying a late evening meal at the track before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday schedule was to run at 11 am and 3 pm. We had the car warmed up and ready to go but unfortunately periods of light drizzle and oil downs meant the schedule was running approx 90 mins behind. We eventually towed down around 2pm, the FIA classes were running in between the drizzle.

The wet stuff did eventually stop by which time the shutdown area was too wet to dry before the mandatory 5pm curfew. The organisers asked John and Gordon to round off the weekend with a paired burnout.

That was Hockenheim 2010, not as much racing as we would have hoped for, but a very enjoyable weekend. Thanks to Jerry Lackey and his team at the Rico Anthes Quartermile, the German fans who turn out in their tens of thousands, Eurodragster.com for their excellent coverage and Nigel Holland for the website updates.Sunday schedule was to run at 11 am and 3 pm. We had the car warmed up and ready to go but unfortunately periods of light drizzle and oil downs meant the schedule was running approx 90 mins behind. We eventually towed down around 2pm, the FIA classes were running in between the drizzle.
 
 
 

      

This past weekend was the last race for the points championship at Lima Land Motorsports Park on Friday night and the traveling NRA 360 Sprint Series also. It was a great night of racing and a great field of cars.  We drew dead last in the first heat race and that had us starting in the 10th position so we had our work cut for us.  The goal was to get to the feature and gain as many points as we can and to try and win the feature and the championship.  On the start of the heat race we got a great start and we came from 10th to 4th in the heat race and that got us qualified for the fetaure. No points were gained at that point.  The inversion for the feature was a 10 and that had us starting on the pole for the feature! We took the lead and never looked back and won the feature! We had a straightaway lead at times, but when the dust settled we did everything we could do by winning the feature and gaining the most points,  but yet not enough. We came up just 55 points short of winning the championship at Limaland Motorsports Park and 72 points short of winning the NRA 360 Series.  In the end we ended up 3rd in both series.  It was great to get the win plus back to back feature wins. Now only 2 to go to hit the 100th!  As we look back, if it was not for the 2 mechanical failures over the course of the summer we had, we could have won both the championships.  In the end we all are very proud of what we accomplished this year.

      

The Nationwide Series visited Canada this week.  Boris Said won at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

      

We at Harold Martin Racing are very excited and pleased to share with you a mid-year update for the 2010 race season highlighting race results with our 2010 Martin M4 Pro Mod race car.

The M4 has been running extremely well on the track and most recently winning the Pro Mod event at the Maryland International Motorsports Park, in Budds Creek, Maryland.  “The dreams and history making could not be possible without our sponsors”, stated Harold Martin.  “It’s always a great feeling to receive a win and I could not think of a better way to show progress. “   This year’s consistency and continuous improvement has allowed us a mid-year positioning of #2 in the point standings for the Pro Nitrous NEOPA series.

Harold Martin Racing is committed to winning both on and off the race track and would like to thank all of our sponsors for supporting our race program. Attached are a few photos from the various events during the race weekend. 

On another great note the M4 race car and Harold Martin has been selected to be in a movie production called “Homerun Derby Showdown” and the filming will be taking place between August and September 2010.  This is another great opportunity for the Martin M4 race car and our sponsor’s likeness to be seen and leverage. 

      

Jay Blake's Permatex/Follow A Dream team reached its second consecutive final in Division 1 competition and dropped a close race with perennial Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Frank Manzo, 5.65 to 5.67. Manzo had low e.t. of all three rounds, with times of 5.67, 5.67, and 5.65, but Follow A Dream driver Todd Veney was right there with a 5.70, 5.69, and 5.67.

"We didn't win, but it was a great weekend anyway," Blake said. "Anytime you can be that close to Mr. Manzo, you know you're doing something right. The team is really starting to jell, working well together, and the results are starting to show. We have a great shot at finishing second in the Division this year, and we're gearing up for a great finish to the season."

Veney qualified No. 3 with a 5.69 and defeated Wayne Morris in the first round, 5.70 to 5.86. In the semifinals, Tom Carter, the No. 2 qualifier and recent runner-up at the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., fell to the Follow A Dream crew, 5.69 to 6.00. No driver all weekend – even Manzo – ran better than a 5.84 in the tricky left lane until Follow A Dream tuner Tom Howell delivered a 5.67 in the final, but Manzo had just enough to win by a couple of hundredths.

"I can't stand losing, even in the final round and even to someone like Frank, who wins all the time, but you can't be that upset about a weekend like this," Todd said. "At least we got to race him this time. The only other time I raced here [in 2003], we got to the final against Frank but had to let him take a single because the engine blew up in the semi's."

After two weekends off, the team finishes the 2010 season with four races in five weeks – two divisionals, and two nationals: Division 1 events in Englishtown (Sept. 11-12) and Atco, N.J. (Oct. 1-2), and nationals in Charlotte (Sept. 17-19) and Reading (Oct. 8-10).

      

Kyle Busch sweeps 'em all at Bristol!
Sprint Cup- Irwin Tools Night Race
Nationwide Series- Food City 250
Camping World Truck Series- OReilly 200

      

      

 Fresh off of a win at Lebanon Valley Dragway, Jay Blake's Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Md., for the next race in the Division 1 Lucas Oil Series.  
            "It's great to head to the track with a win still fresh in our minds," driver Todd Veney said. "That weekend at Lebanon Valley was the best of my career, and I'm ready for another one just like it. Plus, I've got a little unfinished business at Cecil County." In his only previous appearance at the Maryland track, in 2003, Todd reached the final against Frank Manzo was but unable to compete following an engine explosion in a semifinal win over Paul Gill.
            The team currently is one point from being in the national top 10 standings and has been as high as sixth this season. In Division 1, where Manzo has won the championship a record 19 times – more than any driver in any class and in any division in drag racing history – the Follow A Dream crew currently is second in the standings behind Manzo.
            In testing at New England Dragway at the start of the month, the car set both ends of the track record with a best of 5.62 at 257. In four runs, the car ran at least a 5.69 every time, and the speed on all four runs was 257.
            "It was a great test session," Jay said. "I'm feeling better than I have in a couple of years about where we're at and where we're headed. One thing that's really exciting about this event is that we'll have a group of wounded soldiers from George G. Meade as our guests for the weekend. We really appreciate what they do for our country, and we really appreciate the support we've gotten from both the track and NHRA in making all this happen."