RACING NEWS

With rain threatening race conditions, it is often said that you have to pay your dues before you start winning, but in the first round of Qualifying at Summit Raceway Park, the run was one of those that you hate to come up on the short side of. With the best qualifying conditions sure to be Friday night, we left the starting line, shook the tires hard and had to abort the run.

The second round of qualifying was plagued by rain, as was most of the day. The final qualifying session was cold.  At 9.00 pm, with track temperatures approaching 46 degrees, this was surely going to be a long shot at best. To our disappointment, the cold was not a favorable combination with added horsepower which resulted in another failed run and our first DNQ in more than 2 years!

Those are the ones that hurt. To come up short after a banner championship year, you start looking at all the little things that could have made a difference in the run. Shift points, keeping the car more centered in the groove, one small change in any of those items could have made the difference in the run. It's no matter, though. it still ended our race weekend. We will move on to the next race and tighten up our offense a little bit more.

With each run we get a little better. We have a horsepower learning curve that is a great problem to have, and we're getting so close to giving the rest of the field a solid run for their money. With the way we've been going, I'm looking forward to making the field in Joliet and having a really solid summer swing.

WOW! What an event! The big race was trying to qualify for the show. After qualifying finished, NHRA recorded the quickest Top-Sportsman field in history. Our new problem of horsepower was needed indeed. Our Jasper Engines and Transmissions GTO made three perfect qualifying runs before landing the 12th spot at a blistering 6.861 @ 200.35 mph! After three rounds of qualifying in Top-Sportsman at the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, the quickest field in NHRA History!

Fifty-two entries showed up for the 32 car field. This was great. I have never seen anything like it. No one participated in a recession here. This deal rocked.

We put together a stellar package with a .017 light and a 6.91 at 198.87 mph in the first round, but lost due to driver miscue at the finish line. I had the round in the bag until I made a mistake!

Regardless of error, I feel our team is ready for summer. This may have been just what I needed to get the show rolling. I started 2008 in the same fashion. We followed up the weekend with a trip back to Chicago for the "Midwest Top-Sportsman Series", June 27-28, qualified 6th and went a couple of rounds to improve on our series challenge.

We're starting to hit our stride. We had some issues that we had to work through, but I think we're over the problems with which we started. We won rounds at the last event we went to, so I'm hoping we can keep that momentum going in Columbus.

There are a lot of hard working people behind this. I feel fortunate to work with some of the best in the industry to continually push ourselves and improve our game. The level of competition is constantly increasing, and it's our goal to be front runners in that race. I really can't say enough about my team of sponsors, manufacturers and crew that stand behind this program. Their hard work is what makes this program succeed.

June 24-26 National Trails Dragway in Columbus, OH

August 01-02 Knoll-Gas Motorsports Park U.S. 131 in Martin, MI

August 16 Mid-West Top Sportsman Series in Joliet, IL

August 28-29 Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, KY

Maybe it is the near record season that every competitor in the points chase has seen more adversity and first round loses than ever, with the exception of #6 ranked Mike Coughlin, who has not suffered any first round loses!

Maybe it is the rivalry that has developed between many of the competitors, and maybe it is the involvement and sponsorship of the Championship but, WOW, what a strange season it has been.

Whatever the reason, it is perfectly clear that this year the stakes are higher than ever. It has definitely been a crazy year with a lot of great racing. It’s going to be a good fight as we enter into the final stages of the season. In a sense, it is our season chase to put a cap on reaching the top ten in points.

I have a great team and I know we have what it takes to win this thing. Right now all eyes are on the leaders. I can’t wait to get to Columbus this weekend, for NHRA Jegs Northern SportsNationals.

Topping the charts heading into Columbus is two-time winner, Ricky Adkins. Ironically, in a field set on qualifying, Adkins has not qualified first all season long, but an incredible string of great finishes places him first on the ladder. All other competitors are now trying to improve on first round loses.
 
Things are heating up in a hurry with the last few races. We have four final races and we have won at each of the tracks so it’s time to get with it!   We have 10 drivers all within reach of the Championship. That's awfully intense.

Hopefully our Jasper Engines and Transmissions Pontiac will continue to perform flawlessly once action commences on the drag strip located outside of Columbus.

We've been running well, just not having the lucky breaks. The car is good and the driver has been good We just need a little bit of that “good ole” racing luck. 
 
Our car has been going down the track consistently and that is what we need to have happen if we're going to win another title for our great supporters!
 
The Sport Nationals at Columbus, will be the first of our final four events for the DART / Top-Sportsman Drag Racing Series. The tour will also move to Louisville, KY, Reynolds, GA, & Reading, PA, if needed.
 
We're at crunch time. This is an especially tough stretch for us. We better be on our game from this point forward or we'll be exiting the championship hunt pretty quickly.
 
I certainly have fond memories of each of the remaining events, and have won all of our three Championships just like this - in final Races!

I love going down to the wire. Obviously, the track where you won your last event is your favorite. That would be "Ohio Valley Dragway" Louisville, Oct. 3-4.
 
Thank you all for your support, and Wish Us Luck!

We qualified well at Columbus, starting from the fifth spot (6.86 @ 200.08 mph) and ran great until the final where I made a grave mistake. I was very relaxed for the final round against my close friend and awesome competitor, Mike Coughlin, driving his Famed Jegs Cobalt entry. I staged the Jasper Engines and Transmissions GTO at an idle, which the weather conditions were too cold for. I should have had the rpms up a little more. When I hit the gas, our GTO went silent! This highly anticipated final round would have been a “Barn Burner” had I done a better job. That was a tough race to lose, but I have to commend my team and our great sponsors as we are doing what we are supposed to - make it to the Finals.

We still need to get to the trophy rounds on race day, however. We are mid-way, or race one of four, so the pressure is on us to bring our “A” game to the line every time. We pretty much have to swing for the fences each time, but have to be very calculated in doing so. We're under pressure every time we pull to the starting line. Points are on the line.

Now it's on to Louisville for the Ohio Valley Raceway Door Slammer Nationals, Oct. 3-4, and like Columbus, it's another track where we've had success in the past. We are the defending champions at this event. One thing about it, with the schedule having these four races within a five week period, win or lose, you don't have much time to dwell on what happened before you have to refocus and get at it again. Right now, we are focusing on one race at a time, and we will only use Reading, PA, if needed for a top ten finish in points!

Oct. 03-04/2009 Ohio Valley Raceway in Louisville, KY

Oct. 16-18/2009 Silver Dollar Dragway in Reynolds, GA

Reynolds, GA

After NHRA's Safety Safari dried the Silver Dollar raceway, we paired up against No. 20 qualifier and red-hot racer Bill Thigpen. Bill had an excellent .007 of-a-second reaction time, and our day and season ended with a disappointing -.007 red-light reaction time!

This was a tough pill to swallow. We qualified great but just seem to have the Championship monkey on our back. I don't know what it is. We'll leave here with our heads held high and go into the off season knowing we did just the same thing that has produced previous championships for our team.

Sometimes it goes this way for no reason. We raced really well. Parts breakage was at a minimum, and we racers call it luck or lack of, most of the time.

In the last three races our results were as follows:

Columbus, OH - We lost in Final Round. Mike Coughlin won.

Louisville, KY – We raced Mike Coughlin again, We lost by .00016 of-a-second! That is 16 ten thousandths! Mike Coughlin was Runner-Up

Reynolds, GA - Red-Light .007 of-a-second! Mike Coughlin won the vent & the Championship.

So we will congratulate great friend Mike Coughlin and the entire Jegs family for their awesome championship run and we will pass the Championship to Team Jegs for 2009.
 
All we can do is look to the future, move forward and do better next year. But there really isn't any point in banging our heads and getting frustrated about it, because we have been very lucky and good as well.

2010 will be very exciting. NHRA will be introducing Top-Sportsman and Top-Dragster at select NHRA Full-Throttle National Events! I will follow-up with the schedule as soon as it is released. These would be great events to showcase our sponsors’ involvement and hospitality.

Jasper Motorsports / Mitchell Smith Racing partners with high-quality and high-performance companies:

Laser Electric, Valvoline Oil, Jegs, Reher-Morrison Racing Engines, SpeedTech Nitrous, RacePak, Hoosier Racing Tire, Fel-Pro Gaskets, DART Machinery, Automatic Trans Design, Autolite Spark Plugs, Mallory Ignition, Comp Cams, VP-Racing Fuel, Aeromotive Fuel Systems, Lamb Components, Moroso, Diamond Pistons, Donnovan Blocks, Jasper Engines & Transmissions.