Post by daj on Jul 21, 2005 6:32:34 GMT -5
Arend falls victim to No. 1 qualifier Robert Hight in the first round
DENVER, post-race: CMKXtreme Machine Funny Car driver Jeff Arend was eliminated in the first round on Sunday at the 26th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway.
Racing at the Mile-High Nationals began at noon under bright sunshine and in front of a packed house. Arend entered Sunday's elimination's in the No. 16 position and faced top qualifier Robert Hight in round one.
Arend, the best starting line leaver in Funny Car, tattooed Hight at the flash of green with a .060 to .101 reaction time and was even with his opponent when his car smoked the tires near half-track. Hight drove by to take the victory with low elapsed time of the first round, a 4.952 at 312.64 mph, to Arend's 5.986 at 158.22 mph.
"We had a gremlin on the first qualifying run and we changed fuel pumps," explained Arend. "We put the other pump back on today and made a bunch of changes to the car. If our crew chief Paul Smith makes one or two changes between rounds that's a big deal and we made about ten changes for the first round. But the changes we made worked great. Based on what we saw on the computer the car was headed for about a 4.97 run before it overpowered the tricky Denver race track. I'm really happy the way the team came together, the motor looked great after the last run and everything was perfect but the race track just wasn't quite there. We did what we felt we had to do and we were even with Hight until we smoked the tires and he pulled away and ran low elapsed time of the first round."
Arend continued, "Overall I would call it a pretty good weekend. We learned a lot about our fuel and ignition curves this weekend which I'm sure will prove beneficial to us during the last half of the season. We continued to keep qualifying and that was a great way to welcome our new major associate sponsor, SOOoo Good International, on board. We have a lot of great things planned for the near future. I want also thank Urban Casavant and CMKX for their continued support. I'm still the No. 1 driver on the team. Everything was good this weekend except for getting rear ended in my rental car last night."
DENVER, post-race: CMKXtreme Machine Funny Car driver Jeff Arend was eliminated in the first round on Sunday at the 26th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway.
Racing at the Mile-High Nationals began at noon under bright sunshine and in front of a packed house. Arend entered Sunday's elimination's in the No. 16 position and faced top qualifier Robert Hight in round one.
Arend, the best starting line leaver in Funny Car, tattooed Hight at the flash of green with a .060 to .101 reaction time and was even with his opponent when his car smoked the tires near half-track. Hight drove by to take the victory with low elapsed time of the first round, a 4.952 at 312.64 mph, to Arend's 5.986 at 158.22 mph.
"We had a gremlin on the first qualifying run and we changed fuel pumps," explained Arend. "We put the other pump back on today and made a bunch of changes to the car. If our crew chief Paul Smith makes one or two changes between rounds that's a big deal and we made about ten changes for the first round. But the changes we made worked great. Based on what we saw on the computer the car was headed for about a 4.97 run before it overpowered the tricky Denver race track. I'm really happy the way the team came together, the motor looked great after the last run and everything was perfect but the race track just wasn't quite there. We did what we felt we had to do and we were even with Hight until we smoked the tires and he pulled away and ran low elapsed time of the first round."
Arend continued, "Overall I would call it a pretty good weekend. We learned a lot about our fuel and ignition curves this weekend which I'm sure will prove beneficial to us during the last half of the season. We continued to keep qualifying and that was a great way to welcome our new major associate sponsor, SOOoo Good International, on board. We have a lot of great things planned for the near future. I want also thank Urban Casavant and CMKX for their continued support. I'm still the No. 1 driver on the team. Everything was good this weekend except for getting rear ended in my rental car last night."