It was the session that we had all been waiting for. Last night’s Radial vs The World qualifier was awesome with 3-second runs falling out of the sky and the world record being reset multiple times during the course of the round. First it was Barry Mitchell bumping the number down and jumping to the top of the qualifying sheet and then Stevie Jackson in The Shadow 2.0 rolled into the water. The brand new Rick Jones built Camaro which is tuned by Phil Shuler is one of the most anticipated radial cars of all time. It did exactly what it was designed to do on it’s 11th pass ever by dive bombing the world record (which was freshly minted) and dropping a 3.737 on the world.
On the top end, Mike Gwynn who was in the other lane, lost the handle on his Chevelle, crossed the track, and mashed the wall. He was OK and while the car is damaged we believe that it can be repaired for future events. Jackson had already walked off down the track so the Shadow was in no danger of being struck by Gwynn’s errant car.
One of the things to listen to here is the fact that it sounds like Jackson’r car is shifting 100x going down the track. You are actually hearing the torque converter lock and unlock as per the instructions the team has programmed into the race car. Unlocking on the shifts helps to soften their impact and playing with the converter at various points on the track is a strategy that has been used by teams for as long as they have had finite control over their operation. Amazing stuff!
The Chevelle was pitted behind us. The car was pretty bad, and requires some help, but definitely not anything near totaled. He should be back.