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Wednesday, April 25
Etchells was closer than appears
By Chuck Etchells
Special to ESPN.com
Another week has passed and the waiting game continues at Etchells Racing. In a way, that's a good thing, because the involved parties are still talking, and as long as that happens, the hope remains that a suitable agreement can be reached. In the meanwhile, we're doing everything we can to keep our heads above water in what has proven to be the most competitive Funny Car field in the history of the sport.
Our Gainesville weekend was interesting to say the least. With everything that's going on, it would have been easy for the team to succumb to the many distractions. To everyone's credit, they just kept their focus on the task at hand, and as a result we had a pretty respectable weekend.
Because of our current situation, we elected to only run Jim's Mötley Crüe/Matco Tools Camaro during Friday's test and tune session. Although the information we would have gathered from my car would have been useful, we still felt confident the data from Jim's runs would be sufficient to get both cars ready for eliminations.
Even though we didn't make down the track, we learned a lot about the surface. If you look at Friday's numbers, you'll see almost everybody had difficulty making a full run. That meant Saturday's eliminations would be a crapshoot.
I know this will sound strange, but I felt pretty good going into the first round against Force. Even without lane choice on a tricky track, I felt that if we nailed the setup, we would have as good a chance of beating him as anyone.
Believe it or not, we came close.
I know on the outside, all you saw was the Kendall/Matco Camaro smoking the tires early in the run, which allowed John to cruise on by. But inside the race car, I really thought it was going to make it. On every run, we walk an extremely fine line between power and traction, and on that particular pass, we were up on our tiptoes. Unfortunately, we were just a fraction over the top, and as result, on the trailer.
But that run turned out to be more important than it seemed. After watching what my car did (crew chief) Terry Manzer immediately went back to Jim's car in the lanes and made two adjustments, backing down the nitro a percent and changing the flow in the clutch system. That proved to be the difference, and Jim took out TJ Jr. with the quickest and fastest run of eliminations.
That is the beauty of a two-car team. You can take the information from one car and make the second one better. Right now, we have our two Camaros as closely matched as you can get, and it worked to absolute perfection in Gainesville. I've said all along that the pieces were in place, and we're finally starting to see some of the results. I just hope that good fortune shines down on us and allows us to find a way to keep going.
Even though it was only one round win, it was a huge boost to the whole team. We made a great run and beat a good driver and team who also made a pretty strong run. But we didn't have time to stand around and celebrate, because a blower explosion in the lights caused a lot of damage, not the least of which was a flat tire, which delayed the car's return to the pits by about ten minutes (that's about the only time we could have used a NASCAR-like pit stop!).
Once again, the crew did a great job of totally rebuilding the car, although complications prevented us from properly seating the clutch before the second round. In addition, one of the casualties in that first round boomer was the computer, which meant Terry had to tune the car without any data from that great first run. Even so, our early numbers were better than Dean's, but once we started spinning the tires, our day was over.
All in all though, it was a positive weekend for the Etchells Racing team. We're still facing an uphill battle, but we're heading into Bristol with a little bit of momentum. Maybe this week we can turn things around and get some good news both on and off the race track. It certainly would be a nice change.
Chuck Etchells, driver and owner the Kendall Oil/Matco Tools Camaro Z28 Funny Car, provides a diary to ESPN.com throughout the NHRA season.
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