Let me first start with an introduction. My name is James Riola and I am the co-crew chief on David Grubnic’s dragster with Connie Kalitta. This is my ninth season with Kalitta Motorsports.

As you know Todd has put us Kalitta guys on a blog schedule, so here is my first attempt at enlightening the blog readers on my views of the world of drag racing.

For me the 2007 season was bitter sweet. Personally, I was given an opportunity of a lifetime to become co-crew chief with Connie Kalitta midseason. While professionally, Kalitta Motorsports put up one of the worst years they’ve had in a long time. With that in mind we are more driven than ever to make 2008 a great season.

We on Grubnic’s team will start the year without a major sponsor, even more reason we need to come out of the gates running in 2008.

Being second in command brings on a whole new level of responsibility for me at each race. Everyone on the team is counting on me to always be on my "A" game. Connie typically flies into the races on Friday mornings, leaving me at the track with the team to ensure all the set up preparations are complete prior to him getting there. Our team keeps a very detailed log book, kind of like your NFL "playbook" would be. We detail the conditions of every run we make down the track whether it be testing, qualifying, or race day. Some of the things we track are air temp, track temp, tire pressure, head gasket thickness, along with many other things. This gives us the data we need to make final tuning decisions at each race. We keep prior years books on hand for reference material as needed. Each day I prepare the book with as much information as possible that allows Connie to come in and see all the elements of the day and make a final tuning decision. Once he gives me the tune up I relay the appropriate details the crew and we make the final preparations for the run.

With some of the rule changes we have this year, like the switch to 90 percent nitro, will make some of our old data invalid. This is one of the key reasons for testing in Las Vegas and Phoenix prior to the Winternationals. This will help us add some new data to start the year off right. I am personally looking forward to the switch to 90 percent. This allows us to run our cars with lower compression, slower blower overdrive and less ignition timing. This translates to the same amount of power with less wear and tear on our parts. In turn we get better longevity on all our parts. The 90 percent also gives us a whole new list of combinations to try, as well as retry some things that did not work at 85 percent ... I am very optimistic we have a lot of good things in the works for the 2008 season.

See you at the track!



James