Lefevers/Jesel Record Breaking Run at El Mirage

Well the 2011 land speed racing season started off with a bang for us this year. Kevin LeFevers set a record at the opening El Mirage meet in May! The new record speed of 213.609 topped the old record of 208 by over 5 mph! This pass also got Kevin into the El Mirage “Dirty 2” club. The team came back to the dry lake bed in June to see if they could up their new record but only managed a best speed of 212 mph. The July meet was rained out so preparations were made to reconfigure the car for Bonneville Speed Week in August.



Bonneville was a mixed bag as we had a major storm on Sunday leaving a bit of a mushy course for the next couple of days. We also had problems of our own as first the ignition system failed then after fixing that the fuel system started giving us fits. We finally got the car running decent and both brothers made their best runs ever on the salt. First Ryan ran 230 mph shutting off in the middle mile and then Kevin managed a best top speed of 235 mph after a bit more work on the tune up.


Back to El Mirage for the September meet and another 212 mph run. However this was the fastest speed for this meet earning us a top time trophy so we were pretty stoked about that.


In October the team decided to focus on trying to get Ryan into the El Mirage 200 mph club by making him the primary driver, as the boy’s normally share driving duties. At this point in the season we had moved up to a high for us of 12th place in SCTA points. That was the good news. The bad news was there was no breeze that morning so we had a lot of “hanging dust” after a car made a pass. This is compounded by the sun moving more towards the center of the course as the month’s progress during the season shinning almost directly in the driver’s eyes on these early morning runs. As a result Ryan realized he was outside the timing traps at about three quarters of the way down course because he just couldn’t see. So he pulled the parachute and missed getting a time or any points for this meet. The last meet of the year saw some improvement in Ryan’s speed as he managed to eclipse the magic 200 mph barrier on the dirt for the first time with a best pass for the weekend of 203 mph.



The end result to our season was Kevin entering the El Mirage 200 mph Club, setting top time of the meet in September, Ryan exceeded 200mph on the dirt, and we also won the LSR club points championship.

Roush Yates Engines On The Pole At Daytona!

DAYTONA BEACH, FL – Just a few short weeks ago, I reported that Roush Yates engines dominated at the Rolex 24 Hour. Well, they are dominating again at the beach! Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle have qualified on the front row for the Daytona 500 making the folks at Roush Fenway Racing and Roush Yates Engines quite happy. Carl Edwards must also feel a sense of revenge after having Tony Stewart edge him out of the Championship last year on a tie-breaker. The RFR drivers have the only two spots set at this point in the Daytona line-up. The rest of the field will be determined by the Duel 150 qualifying races on Thursday. Edwards’ best lap averaged 194.738 mph while Biffle ran a 194.087 mph lap around the 2.5-mile oval. "This is a very, very speedy Fastenal [Ford] Fusion, and I appreciate [crew chief] Bob Osborne and all the work he's done," Edwards said. "[Engine builder] Doug Yates -- the engines are so important in this.” Burns Stainless is please to provide exhaust components to the Roush-Yates teams.

Danica Patrick makes her debut in the Daytona 500 with a guaranteed spot on the grid. Patrick will be the third woman to start this historic race. With a 191.738 mph lap, she was only able to qualify 30th due to an over-heating problem during her second qualifying lap. Danica felt quite happy with her performance, "It felt fine," she said. "It got a little hot on the water at the end, but other than that -- some water blowing out of the car -- but everybody did a good job. Everybody worked really, really hard on the cars.”


Sunday’s Budweiser Shootout ended poorly for Jeff Gordon who with only two laps to go made contact with Shootout winner Kyle Busch resulting in an eight-car crash (SEE VIDEO) that took him and other out of contention. After Gordon made contact with the 18 car, he hit the outside wall hard, slid onto the apron on his side then flipped three times. Gordon miraculously escaped with minor injuries including a stiff-neck, banged shin, and a cut on his finger. Gordon said that the wreck was due to an aggressive move on his part trying to push Busch too hard. "This is one of the things you're going to see a lot more from me this year. We're going to be aggressive," said Gordon, who won three times in 2011. "I've got an awesome race team, and a car capable of winning races, and I felt like we should have won more races last year than we did. I don't want to let those opportunities slip away, and I feel like we're going to try to make some opportunities as well."

Burns Stainless At The Daytona 24

Daytona Beach, FL – Ford wins it 1-2-3 at the 50th Daytona 24 hour! In an amazing 24 hour race, The Ford/Rileys powered by Burns Stainless customer Roush-Yates Engines finished 1, 2 and 3 ending a winless streak for Ford. This was also the first win by the Michael Shank Racing team. There were high hopes for the Daytona Prototype Corvettes that debuted at the race, but gremlins began appearing early in the race resulting in the Sun Trust Corvette retiring within the first few laps of the race.


There was also much speculation that Gainsco DP Corvette with Alex Gurney at the wheel might win the race. His father Dan won the inaugural race 50 years ago in a Type-19 Lotus, crossing the finishline powered only by his starter motor. It would have been a fitting tribute to his father. Alex led the race briefly after the first hour. Shortly after the 6-hour mark, there was a tough battle between Gurney and the DP Corvette dubbed “The Spirit of Daytona,” driven by Oliver Gavin. For several laps, Gurney gave chase to Gavin but a coolant system failure required Gurney to pit resulting in a short stint in the garage and a loss of 4-laps. A short time later, AJ Allmendinger mounted a more successful assault on the first place Corvette. Pressure by Allmendinger resulted in a mistake by Gavin allowing the Ford/Riley around.


The GT-class also resulted in a 1-2-3 sweep for the mighty GT3R Porsches. The #44 Magnus Racing GT3 piloted by Lally/Lietz/Potter/Rast claimed first place followed by the #67 TRG Porsche. Third place was had by the #59 Brumos Porsche with none other than Hurley Haywood at the wheel. The highest place non-Porsche in GT-class was the Stevenson Camaro GTR powered by a Katech-built LS-engine equipped with Burns-designed Tri-Y headers and collectors.


The Daytona 24 Hour race is quite a spectacle. When I first arrived at the track, I was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place. Though not my first visit to a super-speedway, I was still overwhelmed. Not only was I taken by the immensity of the place, the infield was like a circus – ferris-wheel and all. There were car corrals for Corvettes, Porsches, Minis, Mercedes. There were vendors selling everything from cigars to racing paraphenelia to funnel cakes and tequila. Nissan, Porsche and Chevrolet were there with big car displays. In the Fan Zone there was a large stage with a rock band playing to a large crowd. There were pretty girls all over. Some were giving out NOS drinks and the girls at the Continental Tire display were there to take a picture with you.


I finally made my way to the holy-of-holies, the garages. I first came upon the Daytona Prototype garages with the teams scrambling all over the cars getting them ready for the race. The Gainsco Corvette in its bright red paint scheme was quite stunning. You could tell that all things were not well at the Sun Trust Corvette garage as the engine was being removed and replaced and I could over-hear team members recounting the various issues with the car. The Roush Yates Engine technicians were putting the final touches on the Ford/Rileys of the Michael Shank Racing team.


Moving past the DP garages were the GT-class BMWs of Turner Racing. The bright yellow and blue paint schemes were quite noticeable. Then there was a sea of Porsches as far as the eye could see. The German marquee was well represented with 24 entered in the Rolex and 5 in the Continental Tire 200. Moving further through the garages I came upon the beautiful 458 Italias. Though they did not place well in the race (13th in the Rolex), there is something moving about the sumptuous low-slung Italian bodywork.


Daytona was also the North American debut of the Audi R8 race cars. The Audis looked very purposeful. The simple yet elegant racecars looked like they were there to conquer. The #51 APR entry was only able to complete 447 laps but you can bet that the company that campaigned the mighty TDIs and built a temporary 100-room hotel to house their team at Le Mans will be back in strength.

The first race of the weekend was the GRAND-AM Continental Tire 200. The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge features sports cars manufactured from around the world, brought straight from the showroom floor, that race side by side with only minor modifications in the area of safety. Like the GRAND-AM Rolex Series, the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge races two classes at the same time: Grand Sport (GS) and Street Tuner (ST). The overall winner of the race was the Roush Performance Mustang Boss 302R GT co-driven by none other than Jack Roush Jr. The ST-class was won by the iMoto Racing MazdaSpeed 3 driven by Clunie / Kleinubing and equipped with a Burns Stainless sourced exhaust including Ultralight Racing mufflers.


After the sun goes down, the infield circus transforms into Las Vegas. People dancing, drinking and watching the cars. Patron Tequila has a large bar setup in the infield serving drinks up until 25-laps from the finish. There are campfires all over. It is interesting to note that with the efficiency of the modern race cars the smell of unburned fuel in the exhaust is overcome by the smoky campfire smoke. There is really just too much to write about concerning this race. It is certainly one of the most important races in the world, and is a very unique experience. If you haven’t been, you need to go!

Crawford Still Playin’ After All These Years

You may remember back in the ‘70s a familiar green VW sedan by the name of Bad Company. It was built and driven by Roger Crawford who ran a race shop called Crawford Engineering in Newport Beach, CA. It was one of the best known race-cars of the Bug-In era running low 12s at over 110 mph. In the 90s, Roger built a beautiful 135 mph Pro-Stock Bug that ran in the 9’s. It was not only fast, but sported a beautiful attention grabbing paint scheme worthy of a show car.



Most recently, Roger has been campaigning a 1959 Karmann Ghia with Lucas Oil colors. It has been a successful ride for Roger winning the PRA Super Street Championship in 2007, 2008 and 2009 as well as the 2009 Outlaw Championship. This little video shows the Ghia in action.




The Ghia was also the first PRA-SS VW to break into the 9s with a 9.99 s, 132.58mph run. He also garnered the title of Fastest Super Street Car with a 9.90 sec, 138.02 mph blast.



Roger builds some of the finest race engines in the world and runs a state of the art shop in Fullerton named Heads-Up Performance. His shop has a well equipped DTS engine dynamometer and Roger meticulously tests his engine to ensure the best performance and reliability for his engines. Roger has worked with Burns Stainless LLC for many years. One of his secrets is the BTEC adjustable merge collector which allows him to test countless exhaust combinations allowing him the ability to tune the exhaust optimally for his latest engine combination.



Roger also enjoys playing with American iron and can often be seen at Hot Rod shows in one of his Chevys.

A Burns Stainless Final Round At Pomona

POMONA CALIFORNIA/AVONDALE, ARIZONA - It was a Burns Stainless final round with customers Greg Stanfield and Kurt Johnson pairing off to see who won the NHRA World Finals. The two Pontiac GXPs looked great side-by-side on at the starting line. Unfortunately for the fans, Kurt’s car broke at the starting line (no, not the collectors!) Stanfield didn’t hold back posting a 6.597 s with a 209.59 mph run. It is interesting to note that all of Greg’s runs on Sunday were easy wins with Allen Johnson going sideways at the 1000 ft lights and Jason Line, the 2011 Champion, having to lift at the 1/8th mile when he got loose. “Any time that you win the last race of the season, it makes the winter time a lot better,” Stanfield said. “We’ve been a bit behind in this game for a while, we’re a little bit off, the car has got a lot of runs, and we’ll be hoping to get a new car for next year."


Del Worsham was able to claim the Top Fuel championship in the semi-final round against contender Spencer Massey then winning his eigth victory of the season against veteran Tony Schumacher. His Al-Anabi dragster posted a 3.796 second run at 318.02 mph run. Matt Hagan took the Funny Car victory and championship with a stunning victory in the “quickest-ever” Funny Car race. Hagan held off Robert Hight’s Mustang running a 4.009 second at 317.79mph against Hight’s .031 seconds at 318.92 mph . “You come in expecting the worst and hoping for the best,” Hagan said. “It really is truly amazing this weekend to win the championship and win the race. It’s a testimony to all of my guys who have worked so hard on this DieHard team.”


As SPRINT CUP moves into the final race, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart both put in great performances at Phoenix and are separated by the same 3 points in the Chase as before the race. Though Stewart dominated most of the race, Kasey Kahne was able to claim the lead on lap 299 following a series of green-flag pit stops and kept Edwards at bay to the finish. This was Kahne’s 12th Sprint Cup win and the first this season. Edwards finished second by a mere 0.802 seconds, followed by Sewart. Jeff Burton finished third with Ryan Newman fifth. It was fitting that Kahne claimed a win for the Red Bull team that has announced it will not be continuing in NASCAR. Kahne has signed with the Hendrick’s organization as Jimmie Johnson’s teammate.


The drama was still high in the Gibb’s garage following last week’s suspension of Kyle Busch after the truck incident involving Ron Hornaday. The trouble began when Busch, who qualified 34th, noted that he had no oil pressure for Sunday morning practice. After a quick diagnosis by the pit crew, the engine was replaced sending Busch to the back of the pack but was able to move up running as high as third. But, to add insult to injury, Busch retired on lap 187 with “catastrophic engine failure.” "It's terrible to have one [engine failure] in a weekend, let alone two," Busch said. "It's times like these where you feel like you're down in the dumps, and all you can do is try to pull together and move on through it... It's been a tough couple of weeks and all we can do is go to Homestead, ... win a race in the final outing and get some positive momentum into 2012."


So, will Carl Edwards hold Tony Stewart off at Homestead and bring home the Cup? Tune in and see!

Edwards Holds On To Chase Lead Despite Stewart Win

DALLAS, TEXAS – It was an exciting weekend at the Texas Motor Speedway. Tony Stewart made an impressive showing winning the race and coming within three points of Chase leader Carl Edwards. "I don't think we have to say anything," Stewart said in Victory Lane. "I think our performance spoke for itself. He knows we're there -- trust me - Carl kept us honest. We got all the bonus points we could get and we got the win, so we gained more than we needed to gain on the average for the week. Stewart led much of the race, but Edwards got the jump on a restart on lap 267. Stewart wrestled the lead back from Edwards on lap 275, but after a series of pit stops, fell back. On lap 334, he regained the lead when Jeff Burton ran out of gas with 4-laps to go.


Edwards kept up the pressure to the end, but had to settle for second place. "Although we would have loved to have won [Sunday], to be three points ahead, and then to have the third- and fourth-place guys farther behind, it looks like it's truly going to come down to Tony and I, and that's going to be a lot of fun," Edwards said. Kasey Kahne finished up in third place followed by Matt Kenseth. Greg Biffle finished in the top-five. Jeff Gordon ended up in sixth – good enough to move him up 2 points in the Chase.


Tony Stewart has won four of the eight races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. None of the other drivers in this year’s Chase has won more than one. While Edwards has been extremely consistent this year, he has not won a Chase race yet. In fact, he has only won one race this year – Las Vegas in March. With two races remaining in the season, Edwards has a three-point lead over Stewart in pursuit of the series championship. This season, Edwards’ has consistently finished well. He has 17 top fives to Stewart’s seven and 24 top 10s to Stewart’s 17. So the question is, does consistency win Championships? We’ll find out in the next couple of weeks.


The other story of the weekend was Kyle Busch’s antics in Saturday’s truck race when he decided to take out Ron Hornaday after some contact on lap 15. Hornaday and Busch were racing side-by-side when they came up on Johnny Chapman. As Hornaday, a championship contender, moved up the track to avoid Chapman, he got loose and made contact with Busch, sending them both into the wall. Both trucks made minimal contact with the wall and continued on before the caution flag was raised. Busch caught Hornaday and rammed into the rear of his truck, then made a move to the right then left spearing Hornaday in the left rear quarter resulting in both cars hitting the wall. Busch was sent to the garage by NASCAR officials and was ultimately fined $50,000 and made to sit out of Sunday’s Cup race. This was a costly action by Busch as he was in 7th place in the chase.


This is not the first time Busch has crossed the line this year. At Darlington in May, Busch had a pit row altercation with Kevin Harvick resulting in probation for both drivers. Later, Busch had his driver’s license taken away for speeding in a sports car at 120 mph in a 45 mph residential zone. At the Kansas race, he got punched in the face by Richard Childress for wrecking one of his cars. At Bristol, Kyle retaliated against Elliott Sadler following some race contact, now the aggression at TMS against Hornaday. Obviously, Busch is having some emotional difficulty in dealing with the pressures of Sprint Cup racing. Though Kyle was driving his own car in the truck race, Joe Gibbs made a public statement accepting full responsibility for Busch’s actions. “What we are going to try to do now, other things that have happened in the past, we’ve tried to handle those things the right way, tried to make the right decisions and certainly that’s what we’re going to try to do with this.” Gibbs praised NASCAR for their decision adding that “I always trust NASCAR, I think they do a great job. It’s grown because of them and the way they handle it. I have great faith in the decisions they make.”


In a post-race interview, Darrell Waltrip commented that, if anyone can, “ Joe Gibbs can teach Kyle Busch respect for the other drivers.” He added that “art of greatness is respect.” We can all learn a bit from that nugget of truth.

RCR Claims 100th Victory: Roush-Yates 1 and 2 In The Chase

TALLADEGA, ALABAMA – Richard Childress must have really enjoyed Sunday afternoon. Two of his drivers, Clint Boyer and Jeff Burton were well ahead of the pack at Talladega when it counted – on the last lap. I guess he may have gotten a little nervous as Burton tried to side-draft Bowyer making slight contact. It would have been something had the two contacted hard and spun out! But in the end, Mr Childress not only received the 100th race victory for RCR, he also got 101 as Bowyer finished 0.18 sec ahead of his teammate. “I wasn’t going to put him in a position to wreck us,” Bowyer said. “I have a ton of respect for Jeff Burton. He was still going to have a shot at it. Starting the move that early was going to give him a shot at it. It was probably a pretty risky move on my part. He wasn’t expecting it. I felt like it was an opportunity to catch him off guard, but it about bit me in the butt, too.”


But it wasn’t roses for everyone at RCR as Kevin Harvick, the only RCR driver in The Chase was caught up in a crash putting him nine laps down at the end of the race, and dropping 3 positions in the Chase. “It may have cost us the championship,” lamented Richard Childress, “We may have been able to ride in the back and wait it out, but that wasn’t what Kevin wanted to do. We had all of our sponsors here today. That just isn’t what we wanted to do.” Draft-partners, Dave Blaney and Brad Keselowski finished the race in third place and forth place with Vickers rounding out the top five.


Anticipation is high at the Blue Oval with two Fords running high in the Chase. They want to be sure that Carl Edwards or Matt Kenseth claim the championship this year. It’s been a long time since 2004 when Kurt Busch won the championship for Ford. To that end, Ford let it be known that there would be no tandem-drafting with cars from other manufacturers. It made for a couple of awkward moments as when Trevor Bayne had to leave Jeff Gordon to hook-up with Matt Kenseth after Dave Ragan’s car broke. Kenseth and Ragan were running in the top ten all day with Kenseth leading 21 laps of the race. But after the restart with only two laps to go, something in Ragan’s engine blew leaving Kenseth stranded without a drafting partner. Bayne then ditched Gordon to help Kenseth. It was too little too late as Kenseth could do no-better than 18th. All was not terrible though as the 18th place finish was good enough to move him up one spot in the Chase.


Some of the fans are showing disappointment with the Ford orders. To defuse some of the displeasure, Bayne commenting on his Twitter account after the race, said he also was displeased with how the finish unfolded. “I'm not happy about what this has become,” Bayne wrote. “It's too premeditated. We should be able to go with whoever is around. I would have rather pulled over and finished last than tell [Gordon] I would work with him and then be strong armed into bailing.” Kenseth also commented that he did nothing to strong-arm Bayne. Kenseth posted on his Twitter account: “Some of you are wound tight. I am frustrated also and didn’t invent this silly two car tandem shove thing. I would much rather race!”



Carl Edwards remains in the top Chase spot with Roush-Yates teammate Matt Kenseth moving up to second place. With Brad Keselowski’s strong finish this week moves him up to 3rd place. Tony Stewart is currently in fourth and Kevin Harvick in fifth place. Can Ford hold on for four more races?