MAKE OR BREAK #55
Make or Break
w/ Rick Jones
Rick Jones
Now that we have a few races under our belt in the ADRL Pro Nitrous category, we seem to have a pretty good idea on how to tune our car. Honestly, it really isn’t that much different than a Pro Stock car in terms of chassis, clutch and gearing. Ever since we made the decision to run Pro Nitrous, I have been wondering to myself, is this going to be that much different than what I’m used to? Now, I’m not talking about the nitrous tuning – just making the calls on running the car.
It seems like everything we have learned in Mountain Motor and NHRA Pro Stock has applied to our nitrous car. The car is awesome and responds the same way as what we are used to in Pro Stock. When we change the 4-link, we see a change; when we adjust the shocks, we see a change.
The technology in Pro Stock is so far advanced it is unbelievable, truly, and I see it coming to the Pro Modified ranks in a big hurry. Some of the gains we have made are truly amazing. Between our new style chassis and technology from some of our vendors, it’s been a very exciting process. We have been to four different tracks and we’ve run .940-second 60-foot times on over 30 different runs with a best of .937-seconds. I can only see it getting better, too, as time goes on and we get better.
Truth be known, we have been working nonstop every day on designing new products. We stayed behind and tested on Sunday in Reading, Pennsylvannia following the ADRL Northeast Drags and pulled the whole rear suspension out of the car and put in a new experimental rear end housing that we developed with Strange Engineering. We also tested some new Penske shocks, and we had some great success with both new products. With 5 weeks off between Reading and the Independence Drags in Topeka, Kansas, we have developed a lot of other new things, and we’re looking forward to a few days back at the track testing in Martin, Michigan in early June to see if we can take our performance up a notch.
I feel that we have an awesome team with the people I have at the shop and the team we have at the track. Like Shannon Jenkins told me, you are only as good as the people that surround you. That said, I feel we have the best people on the job.
I also have to take my hat off to and thank Larry, Cale and Cody Crispe that handle the track preparation for ADRL events. They make it a lot easier to tune the car when the tracks are consistently good all the time, and they truly do an awesome job. They are the best I have ever seen, and I trust them to have the tracks safe for my son Rickie to race on. They also don’t have big egos; they are genuinely good guys that I really enjoy talking to.
For me, it was also really special to see the car we built for Shannon Jenkins be the first car to run in the 3.70’s here in the ‘States at West Palm Beach, Florida, and also to see them run the quickest Pro Nitrous run ever – a 3.77 at Reading – which was truly awesome. I have to say, that whole team is doing a tremendous job. As of right now, most the time we only have two Pro Nitrous cars at the races. They both are running very well, and I think they we can only get better as we make more runs. I can’t wait to build more of these cars. When some one buys a new car from us I know with all the technology and R&D we have done at RJ Race Cars our customers will get a car second to none.
See you at the races!
