News & Updates

Hartley Racing Team Update

OMAHA, NE – June 15, 2006 - Here is a quick update on what the Hartley Racing team has been up to. 

We took the Nitro Funny Car to the MOPAR Canadian Nationals at the Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, Ontario Canada.  This was the third race in an eleven race series, our driver Gary Cooper did an excellent job qualifying in 4th place! 

In our first qualifying session, the car moved out about 100 feet and then smoked the tires and Gary had to shut it down.  We went back to the pits and analyzed the data from our onboard RacePak computer and found that the clutch system had a small malfunction which caused the tires to smoke. 

We made the appropriate adjustments for the next qualifier and went right down the track to about 1,000 feet where we dropped a cylinder forcing the car to make a move toward the wall, so Gary had to shut it down.  We made an adjustment to the fuel system to stop the cylinder from dropping and we were ready for the next qualifier.  But the rain started coming down and ended our chance for another shot at the number one spot.  We ended up qualifying 4th which was not bad for shutting off at 1,000 feet. 

Sunday arrived with a cool but sunny sky. We were all pumped up about this round of racing based on the potential that the car showed in the last qualifying attempt.  Our first round opponent was Bob Gilbertson, driving for Autolite XP Spark Plugs.  Bob is a regular on the NHRA circuit and has been racing all year.  Both Gary & Bob started off together, but both cars smoked the tires at about the same place on the track.  Each of them pedaled the cars to try and recover from the tire smoke. Our car hooked up and then broke a blower belt and Bob's car hooked up and went on down the track for the win.  This was pretty disappointing but that is the way racing is…some days you win some days you lose. 

We spent the rest of the day packing up for the trip to the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Route 66 raceway in Joliet, Illinois.  I must say that Top Fuel is my real love because I used to drive (retired in 1999) and my son Joe drives now.  We were really excited about this race because the performance from the Funny Car showed us that we were headed in the right direction with the tune up. 

BAM!!! Right out of the box, we laid down a 4.705 ET at 306.95 MPH which put us in the 10th position out of 16 qualifying spots.  The onboard RacePak computer gives us information on about 50 different things on the race car.  The ones we use the most are the engine RPM, driveshaft speed, fuel delivery (idles at 4.5 gallons per minute and about 77 gallons per minute in the middle of the track), each cylinder temperature, supercharger pressure, clutch pressure and movement (tells us how fast the clutch is being engaged; slips at about a 10:1 ratio at the hit of the throttle and locks up 1:1 at about 2.6 seconds), g-meter and ignition timing. 

Based on the computer statistics, we determined that we were slipping the clutch too much in the beginning.  We made an adjustment to try and pick up the ET.  We were the next to last pair to run in the night qualifier (this is based on your previous round of qualifying).  The track temperature cooled off to 70 degrees and the air temp was down to 58.  This combination is not good (too much power and not enough traction), so we smoked the tires at about 100 feet and now slipped to the 16th qualifying position. 

The next day it rained on and off all day.  NHRA uses jet engine track dryers so when it quits raining it only takes about a half hour to dry the track for racing.  We were not sure if we would get another qualifying attempt.  This would be good in one respect (we were in the field and would be racing on Sunday) and bad in another respect (we would not get another chance to improve on our qualifying position).  Racing is a lot about the tune up and the more laps you get the better your tune up is. 

Finally, the rain let up enough that we would get another chance.   The first pair went down the track and they did so well that just like that we were bumped out of the field to the 17th position.  I was confident that we had a tune up that would keep us in the field, but right then it started to rain again.  The rules state that if the session is canceled because of rain, any car that went down the track would keep the run and the other cars would not get another chance.  This meant that we would not make the field and would not be racing on Sunday. 

Fortunately, the rain stopped as quickly as it started and in about a half an hour we were ready to go racing.  The car left the starting line and looked good all the way to about 1,000 feet where it pushed our a head gasket and started to slow down.  But Joe was able to cross the finish line with a 4.611 ET at 316.82 MPH to get us in the show at the 15th position.  Talk about an excited and relieved crew, this was our quickest ET to date and second fastest MPH!  Looking at the computer after that run showed us that the car is capable of running mid to low 4.5 second ET's and that we have the potential to win some races! 

Sunday was a beautiful day with a clear sunny sky and we were all pumped up to win our first round.  In the first pass, Joe had a .02 second head start when he left the starting line (a .090 reaction time to a .115 for the other driver).  It was a very close race until we dropped a cylinder and broke a blower belt.  We lost to the eventual event winner but we are still excited about how much the car has improved over last year. 

We are now getting ready for another trip to Canada, this time the Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta.  This is the first of a four race swing for the Funny Car. The next time we race the Top Fuel car will be at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, MN.

Hartley Racing would like to invite all of you to join our iDigDrags fan club and come to a race.  Check out our schedule and come on out.  Visit us in the pits and cheer us on at the track!