If you receive National DRAGSTER you saw that our Everglades experience was captured in an insert of the Gainesville souvenir edition. Debbie was very happy because she was both the author and the photographer for that piece. She was walking around telling all her friends that she was published, and she wore a big smile as she delivered that message. I told her she would have to write more blogs since she did so well. However, I am writing this one, again from the seat of an airplane. Gary and I are on our way home from the ACDelco NHRA Nationals in Gainesville. Prior to the Gainesville event, we were at South Georgia Motorsports Park testing the GEICO Motorcycle. This year marks some of the biggest internal changes that the GEICO Motorcycle team has made to date. We added electronic fuel injection to our in-line four Suzuki, changed up our team a little by adding Greg Underdall as a crew member, and we are in the process of building a new bike to test this season. A few factors drove us to make the changes; the biggest one being the number of V-type motors that are joining the category and the fact that they’re seemingly guaranteed a spot in the top 16. We knew that we had to make some drastic changes if we wanted to be racing on Sunday.

Our first test session with the fuel injection was in the hometown of the team owners, at a fantastic eighth-mile track. We normally start out our testing getting the 60-foot times worked out, and this year was no different. The ‘boys’ felt pretty good leaving the track as we headed up north to South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP). The full passes took place at the AMA Dragbike test session on Friday, followed by their first event of the season on Saturday and Sunday. Again, the ‘boys’ seemed pretty happy with the results. Out of 13 passes, 11 were in the 6’s. In all honesty, I was pretty happy, too. We ended up putting the GEICO Motorcycle Suzuki in the No. 1 spot of the AMA Dragbike Pro Stock class and won the event. That’s a feat that we have yet to accomplish in our Professional career, and we really feel the work that we did over the winter with the clutch setup and the fuel injection helped us achieve that. The following week there was another test session at SGMP called the Eastern Spring Test Nationals. This was a four-day scheduled test session with a Chicago-style race on the final day. Usually, at this event we see the Gary Scelzis, Melanie Troxels, Brandon Bernsteins, Scotty Cannons, Pro Mod racers, and Pro Stock racers alike. It really is a who’s who of drag racing, and the fans love to come and mingle with the racers.

Interestingly enough, we were rained out on one day and blown out by the wind on the second day (just like in Gainesville this year). Hmm! I hope that weather pattern doesn’t become a trend for the events this year. Even with the uncommon weather pattern, we were able to make up the test session days. We were definitely not the fasted Pro Stock Motorcycle, but we were consistently in the 6.9s. I told some fans there that I really thought we needed to be consistent and in the 6.80s to be competitive this year, and after the ACDelco Nationals, I firmly believe it.

The ACDelco rain-called qualifying sessions on Friday challenged the GEICO Motorcycle team to put in a tune-up that would be safe enough to make the show, yet strong enough to stay in. We also knew that there may be a chance that we would not get a second run on Saturday, so really it was this one hit that had to do it. The ‘boys’ gave me the bike and we ended up in the seventh spot after the first session. We knew there was more and planned on turning it up for the second qualifier. The weather pattern that we experienced in Georgia came into play because we were facing tail/cross winds with gusts up to 40 mph for session No. 2. It hurt us a little and we ended up No. 8.

Sunday was a beautiful day of sunshine and minimal winds. We felt good going into first round, even though we had one of the toughest racers in the lane next to us. Chris Rivas and I raced on the West Coast together in NHRA Division 7. I knew it was going to be a good race. It started off good, but that was about it. For all the testing and preparedness we did before the season start, we suffered an electrical malfunction with our GEICO Motorcycle as a tiny broken wire and a failure in a switch ended our day in round one. Wow, that really hurt. You think you do all the right things to be ready and, WHAM, you get knocked down.

With that said, the only thing we can do is get right back up again! The Suzuki lay naked and stripped in the trailer as the team analyzed each external motor connection with microscopic and multiple sets of eyes to ensure that we had uncovered all culprits. With that said, we will still be prepared for Houston.