The Treit and Devenport Target 550 streamliner will not compete at Bonneville Speed Week 2014 after suffering mechanical problems at the USFRA test and tune meet a couple of weeks back and suffering damage that could not be repaired in time to have the car ready to go by the time Speed Week officially kicks off next weekend. The team had the misfortune of suffering a supercharger explosion that ate up one of the engines and caused damage to the body due to the concussion of the explosion. Anyone who has ever seen a fuel funny car explode will understand what we’re talking about. There is so much escaping pressure that the air “finds a way out” and in this case it found escape by damaging the body.
Target 550’s Marlo Treit explains exactly what happened in this passage from their recent website update on the project:
The fact that the car went 278mph in first gear is pretty awesome from a layman’s point of view. We realize that is more than 200mph off of the goal speed, but when a normal car does about 25 in first gear you get the picture of why that at least makes us smile and shake our heads in wonder. Treit reported successes for the weekend that included the fact that none of the fire from the rear engine expiring got into the driver’s area, the team’s rig to move the car around worked perfectly and the RacePak data acquisition system worked perfectly, giving the team lots of valuable information from their trip.
We’re not sure if the team is shooting for the World Finals meet or the Streamliner meet later in 2014 but either way, we’ll be paying attention. Why? This is one of those cars that has the opportunity, when conditions are right and it is tuned to the teeth, to run up to the five century mark. That “Target 550” name is no mistake. These guys know what they want to do and they’re going to fight until they do it.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE TARGET 550 WEBSITE
Real bummed out about this. I was hoping to see it run, guess I have to come back in 2015? The car was built near me and I had a chance to visit Jim Humes shop and check it out a few years ago. Very cool!!!