Top Fuel Motorcycle legend Chris Hand had a successful outing at the Mid West Drag Racing Series Summer Spectactular at World Wide Technology Raceway Park, where the “Redneck Express” team overcame adversity.
Crewman Dick Boxell sent along the following synopsis –
The crew for this race consisted of Crew chief Sharon Hand, Steve Legendre, and Dick Boxell, Not being able to attend were Jim Fox (work thing), and Gary and GT Tonglet as they were supporting LE in NHRA Pro Stock Bike.
Chris has been super busy during the downtime with the high work load at his business, and diagnosing Patton for unexplained leak downs after Memphis.
Chris had three complete power plants ready for action, with repaired “Patton” in the bike.
Chris and Sharon and Steve arrived second through the gate Friday morning and we set up the pit area and ready the bike for round 1 of qualifying. We fired the bike to check it out and it barked pretty good!
Friday Q 1 , Left Lane
With the shortage of traction compound that caused very little testing on Thursday and the early morning down pour of rain, the track had no stick left.
They prep the track and we get the call .
We ready the bike and tow up to the staging lanes. We lobby for pushback help, and Chuck Stuart agrees to push back as I try to guide. Sharon runs the starter while I run the squirter, start the bike, Chris rolls through the water box, the tire gets wiped Chris starts to do his burnout, it starts to heat the tire then goes silent.
NO SPARK!!
We get the bike back and diagnose the bike to find the issue, and as a result we miss Q2. Patton has good leak downs after the shortened burnout.
We take the first mag apart, and find nothing obvious and Chris changes the points box and coil. We put Mag 1 back in and we have spark, as all this takes us well into the dark and a little cooler temps, ignition system is now back together.
Chris spins the bike over and we have spark!! Chris and I look at each other and simultaneously say we gotta hear it! We put the pipes back on and check everything and at 1:30 AM Saturday we make noise, and it sounds healthy on
Methanol!
Saturday Q3
We ready the bike and tow up to the staging lanes. We lobby for pushback help, and Chuck Stuart again agrees to push back as I try to guide. Sharon runs the starter while I run the squirter, start the bike, Chris rolls through the water box, the tire gets wiped Chris does the burnout, Chuck pushes him back line up and it leaves good but crawls up the crown and Chris wrestles the bike away from the centerline, clicks it off but we are on the ladder, with a 4.953 @ 108.26 MPH.
We get the bike back and the leak down looks better.We also change out the rear tire.
Saturday E1 , Right Lane
We are scheduled to run Dave Vantine for this round and Dave has lane choice. We ready the bike for elimination runs and tow up to the staging lanes. Get up to the line getting ready to start the bike, I hear Greg Pollard hit the switch on their bike I look over and get the nod from Greg and we fire up the bike. Sharon runs the starter while I run the squirter, start the bike, Chris rolls through the water box, I wipe the front tire and Chris does his burnout. Chuck Stuart again agrees to push Chris back and still no burnout from the Yellow Bullet, as they had an issue
starting their bike they get it started do a quick burnout and backup, Chuck instructs Chris to hold a little as they catch up to stage.
Both bikes stage up and lights flash and Dave gets a leave on Chris as the bike seems to stumble then takes
off like a banshee. As a result we are done for the day.
We get the bike back and leak it down with the best numbers of the weekend! I would like to add that MSD components are some of the most reliable parts out there!
Congratulations to Sam Wills winning the rainout final from Memphis over Mark Connor. Also congratulations to Larry McBride and team for their win at their first competition in over a year. Hats off to Mitch Brown and crew for a herculean task of changing an engine so quick to make the final.
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