Post by daj on May 9, 2005 12:33:49 GMT -5
With pair of runner-up finishes, Arend and Bartone put sponsor in spotlight.
To many fans it may have been a surprise, but to those who have been closely following the POWERade tour's highly unpredictable Funny Car class in the last few seasons, it was clearly no accident. In a perfect example of hard work and experience coming together at just the right time, CMKX-sponsored teammates Tony Bartone and Jeff Arend raced to back-to-back final-round appearances in Las Vegas and Bristol.
Although both drivers, who are sponsored by CMKX Diamonds, are beginning to taste success at the same time this season, each followed completely different paths to get his chance at NHRA glory. Yes they share the same major sponsor, but that's where the similarities end.
The racers, each legitimate top 10 POWERade points contenders, drive for two separate race teams. Bartone pilots Jim Dunn's Got CMKX?/Lucas Oil Monte Carlo with NHRA veteran Dunn making the tuning calls, and Arend pilots the CMKXtreme Machine Monte Carlo owned by Paul Smith Racing, with Smith using his years of savvy and experience to call the shots for Arend.
The two teams operate entirely independently of each other; Arend and Bartone share time only when making public appearances at various hospitals around the country with CMKX teammate Connie Cohen. They say hi but pass no data back and forth.
Arend has been working hard to field a competitive ride since his return to Funny Car last season at the spring race in Las Vegas. The 42-year-old Canadian native made his 2004 debut with the support of Urban Casavant, a fellow Canadian and the CEO of CMKM Diamonds, a mining company based in Canada. Together with Paul Smith, the man who helped Arend earn his first Funny Car national event victory at Maple Grove in 1996, Arend put together the CMKXtreme Machine team almost overnight. Longtime friend Ed Margaretich loaned the team a chassis with an older Corvette body, and Arend burst back onto the scene with a No. 3 qualifying effort at Houston.
Remarkably, Arend qualified at 16 races, including 14 in a row, along with establishing his career-best speed and elapsed time. But he failed to win a round all season, and it was obvious the team needed to update its operation.
"The main reason we’ve been running better this season has a lot to do with our equipment," said Arend from his San Dimas, Calif., home. "We started the season with a brand-new Murf McKinney chassis and Chevrolet Monte Carlo body. Then we started changing every major component, and we didn’t stop until every nut and bolt on the car was brand-new. All of these changes gave us the potential to immediately improve our performance, especially compared to the performance of the 5-year-old Corvette body we ran last season.
"I also believe the addition of Ronnie Thompson in Gainesville has helped us with our consistency. It was very hard for Paul Smith to try and run the team on his own because he does everything. He orders the parts, he hires the crew guys, he sets up their travel and stuff like that, and we didn’t have anyone else there to come along and sort of fine-tune everything. Ronnie’s helped us look at every run we’ve made and learn the most from it. That’s the key; if you can learn the most from every run you’ve made, you’re not going to make the same mistakes next time. I think that’s what has brought our consistency around."
A star on the Top Alcohol circuit, Bartone drove to his first Professional final round in Las Vegas, which added to his 52 final-round appearances racing in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. The New York native’s journey to the championship round in Vegas was highlighted by a slick 4.92 during his semifinal victory over Ron Capps in the heat of the day. The Dunn Racing team has been a picture of consistency, and Bartone has become progressively quicker as the season rolls into the summer.
"We started working with different engine combinations at the end of the 2004 season, and we were in test mode in preparation for 2005," said Jon Dunn, assistant crew chief and business manager for the Jim Dunn Racing team. "But we also wanted to focus a lot of attention on the sponsorship side of things. We wanted to emphasize a sponsor-friendly atmosphere. We rolled into Pomona with two 53-foot tractor trailers, complete with new graphics. We use one of them exclusively for hospitality and entertaining sponsors in an effort for our racing program to be successful both on and off the track.
"We spent a lot of time and effort throughout the off-season on our motor and clutch program. We are qualifying stronger with more consistency at every event. When you can make three qualifying runs that are good enough to make the field, you are bound to have a better chance of winning rounds on race day, and that’s what happened in Las Vegas. There’s plenty of performance left, and we fully expect to be in the final round again this season."
With two cars, two teams, two drivers, and two different approaches to racing, CMKX has doubled its chance of putting its name in the Funny Car winner’s circle. Arend and Bartone will continue to battle all season to see which team will earn Casavant his first national event victory.
www.nhra.com/apcm/templates/news_template.asp?articleid=4452&zoneid=7
To many fans it may have been a surprise, but to those who have been closely following the POWERade tour's highly unpredictable Funny Car class in the last few seasons, it was clearly no accident. In a perfect example of hard work and experience coming together at just the right time, CMKX-sponsored teammates Tony Bartone and Jeff Arend raced to back-to-back final-round appearances in Las Vegas and Bristol.
Although both drivers, who are sponsored by CMKX Diamonds, are beginning to taste success at the same time this season, each followed completely different paths to get his chance at NHRA glory. Yes they share the same major sponsor, but that's where the similarities end.
The racers, each legitimate top 10 POWERade points contenders, drive for two separate race teams. Bartone pilots Jim Dunn's Got CMKX?/Lucas Oil Monte Carlo with NHRA veteran Dunn making the tuning calls, and Arend pilots the CMKXtreme Machine Monte Carlo owned by Paul Smith Racing, with Smith using his years of savvy and experience to call the shots for Arend.
The two teams operate entirely independently of each other; Arend and Bartone share time only when making public appearances at various hospitals around the country with CMKX teammate Connie Cohen. They say hi but pass no data back and forth.
Arend has been working hard to field a competitive ride since his return to Funny Car last season at the spring race in Las Vegas. The 42-year-old Canadian native made his 2004 debut with the support of Urban Casavant, a fellow Canadian and the CEO of CMKM Diamonds, a mining company based in Canada. Together with Paul Smith, the man who helped Arend earn his first Funny Car national event victory at Maple Grove in 1996, Arend put together the CMKXtreme Machine team almost overnight. Longtime friend Ed Margaretich loaned the team a chassis with an older Corvette body, and Arend burst back onto the scene with a No. 3 qualifying effort at Houston.
Remarkably, Arend qualified at 16 races, including 14 in a row, along with establishing his career-best speed and elapsed time. But he failed to win a round all season, and it was obvious the team needed to update its operation.
"The main reason we’ve been running better this season has a lot to do with our equipment," said Arend from his San Dimas, Calif., home. "We started the season with a brand-new Murf McKinney chassis and Chevrolet Monte Carlo body. Then we started changing every major component, and we didn’t stop until every nut and bolt on the car was brand-new. All of these changes gave us the potential to immediately improve our performance, especially compared to the performance of the 5-year-old Corvette body we ran last season.
"I also believe the addition of Ronnie Thompson in Gainesville has helped us with our consistency. It was very hard for Paul Smith to try and run the team on his own because he does everything. He orders the parts, he hires the crew guys, he sets up their travel and stuff like that, and we didn’t have anyone else there to come along and sort of fine-tune everything. Ronnie’s helped us look at every run we’ve made and learn the most from it. That’s the key; if you can learn the most from every run you’ve made, you’re not going to make the same mistakes next time. I think that’s what has brought our consistency around."
A star on the Top Alcohol circuit, Bartone drove to his first Professional final round in Las Vegas, which added to his 52 final-round appearances racing in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. The New York native’s journey to the championship round in Vegas was highlighted by a slick 4.92 during his semifinal victory over Ron Capps in the heat of the day. The Dunn Racing team has been a picture of consistency, and Bartone has become progressively quicker as the season rolls into the summer.
"We started working with different engine combinations at the end of the 2004 season, and we were in test mode in preparation for 2005," said Jon Dunn, assistant crew chief and business manager for the Jim Dunn Racing team. "But we also wanted to focus a lot of attention on the sponsorship side of things. We wanted to emphasize a sponsor-friendly atmosphere. We rolled into Pomona with two 53-foot tractor trailers, complete with new graphics. We use one of them exclusively for hospitality and entertaining sponsors in an effort for our racing program to be successful both on and off the track.
"We spent a lot of time and effort throughout the off-season on our motor and clutch program. We are qualifying stronger with more consistency at every event. When you can make three qualifying runs that are good enough to make the field, you are bound to have a better chance of winning rounds on race day, and that’s what happened in Las Vegas. There’s plenty of performance left, and we fully expect to be in the final round again this season."
With two cars, two teams, two drivers, and two different approaches to racing, CMKX has doubled its chance of putting its name in the Funny Car winner’s circle. Arend and Bartone will continue to battle all season to see which team will earn Casavant his first national event victory.
www.nhra.com/apcm/templates/news_template.asp?articleid=4452&zoneid=7