Webb and Ahlfeldt Run Career Best 6.04

16-year Top Fuel veteran Ron Webb grabbed a fist full of throttle and fought his 1200-plus horsepower Trett/Motorcycle Unlimited machine down the quarter-mile to a near five-second awe-inspiring blast of 6.04 at a blazing 227 mph at the 2003 AMA/Prostar World Finals in Gainesville, Fla.

When asked how wild of ride this track-pounding 6.04 was Webb offers an unexpected response.
          
“It was so easy to ride your grandmother could have rode it,” Webb said of his career best run.  “I never expected it to be a 6.0.”

Adding to Webb’s confusion was the fact the bike wasn’t functioning properly at the time.

 “It really doesn’t make sense,” Webb said.  “We were saving our good motor for Sunday. The motor we ran was hurt and we were running on only three cylinders early into the run. We ran 6.20s and 6.30s earlier in the weekend when the motor was fresh.”

With the wounded machine only utilizing three-fourths of its cylinders and still running a mere four-hundredths of a second away from Webb’s long sought goal of a five, it’s reasonable to think the pass would have been a five with a healthy motor, right?  Webb sternly pledges to make no such calculations.

“I’m not into this prediction game that everyone out there seems to play,” Webb said.  “If I had a nickel for every time the computer said somebody should have run a five I would be rich.  The only thing that matters is what the time slip says.”

After the record run Webb felt more focused than ever on his mission of breaking into the fives – a feat he feels is even more satisfying than winning a championship.

“It’s a very exclusive group that I would be honored to join,” Webb said of the five-second club.  “The other thing is I’m getting old. How long can I keep throwing a retirement house away for a hobby?  It’s time to get it done, and I think it’s definitely attainable.”
         

“We’ve come a long way in the last few years,” Webb said.  “We threw away a lot of time in mid-nineties when we couldn’t get the bike to go straight.  It was a challenge just to get it past the eighth-mile. I’ve added some tubing and now we have it going straight as an arrow, so we can really bring the power on.”

Unfortunately for Webb his plans to run into the five-second-zone never materialized. His experienced and talented crew chief “Big” Carl Ahlfeldt began to suffer from health complications. Ahlfeldt was a driving force on the team and performed most of the labor on the bike and without his assistance Webb was unable to compete.  Unfortunately Ahlfeldt would subside to his illness in October of 2007, leaving the future of the Fire and Ice Team and Webb's goal of running a five uncertain.

Related Story
 Top Fuel Motorcycle Veteran Carl Ahlfeldt Passes         

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10/11/2007