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NHRA Pro Stock Driver Mike Edwards Brings it All Home for Mom & Dad at Topeka

28 May 2010

Mike Edwards Penhall/K&N Pontiac GXP

In a season filled with numerous number one qualifiers and four NHRA Pro Stock event victories, one could safely say that Mike Edwards, driver of the Penhall/K&N Pontiac GXP, has certainly been enjoying a very successful 2010 thus far, heading into the most recent event in Topeka, Kansas.

Mike Edwards secured the number one spot for the 2010 K&N Horsepower Challenge

Edwards, of Coweta, Oklahoma, who is also securely in the number one spot for the 2010 K&N Horsepower Challenge, has achieved many accolades during his Pro Stock career, but even with all his event victories, never with his mom and dad in attendance.

That was about to change.

During the 22nd NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka, Edwards found himself in the familiar number one qualifying position, but it didn't come quite as easy as other events.

Friday's qualifying sessions proved to be the best for the Pro Stock drivers, as extremely windy conditions prevailed for both sessions on Saturday along with considerable "bad" air for the naturally aspirated engines, which slowed the cars down by a tenth of a second or more.

"On Saturday and Sunday, Saturday especially, we had some big wind and luckily it was a dead-on head wind," said Edwards. "If it would have been blowing across the track, I'm not even sure we could have run because it was very-very strong.

Edwards' runs in the early sessions on Friday would be his best of the weekend and the 6.638 pass, made during the second session, would hold off number two qualifier, Allen Johnson, by almost two full hundredths.

Come race day, the Penhall/K&N team made their way through round number one, when Edwards posted a 6.713 to Justin Humphries 6.763. His horsepower packed domination continued in round two and when Ron Krisher went red in the semi-finals, he sailed to the final round, where he would find himself in a rematch from the previous year's event, Allen Johnson.

Normally professional NHRA teams have seventy-five minutes between rounds, but during this event that was shortened to forty-five, which one may think is a little tight, especially if you needed to change an engine.

"Our guys have got it down," explained Edwards. "It really doesn't take that long. We've got it down to about twenty minutes."

With as tight and competitive as NHRA Pro Stock is, one may think that changing an entire engine in the middle of race day would be a little unnerving, not so according to Edwards. "We take one engine out and the other is complete. We know a lot about each engine and are always comfortable in changing them."

The stage was set for the final, much like in 2009, when Edwards faced Johnson and his parents, A.C. and Gladys looking on.

"My parents have supported me a lot. They don't get to go very much because they are up in their years. But they keep up with it and everything that is going on, it was great having them here this weekend and it really made it all very special," he said.

Leading up to the final, Allen Johnson consistently posted the quickest E.T.'s of eliminations, staying in the 6.70 range all throughout. This would give him lane choice over Edwards in the final.

"They just have all together well-rounded team," Edwards said of his final round opponent, Johnson. "They are really making good runs and have exceptional power. They are definitely going to have a say in what's fixin' to happen the rest of the year."

But what happened in the final was all Edwards on the line and just when he needed it to take a holeshot victory by a mere three-thousandths of a second margin at the stripe, posting a 6.717 to Johnson's 6.710. "This win was just truly extra special. This is the first race I've won with mom and dad being at the race," said an elated Edwards.

Never much downtime for a Championship winning team such as Edwards Motorsports as they spent the Monday and Tuesday following their Topeka win testing, since the upcoming schedule won't allow much time for that over the new few weeks.

The next event for Edwards and his Penhall/K&N Pro Stock team is the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, Illinois, June 3-6.

2012 Lexus LFA Gets an Exclusive Four Hour Test Date with K&N's Dynamometer

28 May 2010

2012 Lexus LFA

Why is it that so many otherwise rational individuals morph into gibbering, bug-eyed, knuckleheads at the mere mention of supercars? We knew a guy that compromised his 10-year anniversary dinner, and his relationship, for a half-hour sprint up Pacific Coast Highway in a Bugatti Veyron. Sure, the forbidden fruit aspect is a part of it, although more accurately, it's that they are ridiculously inaccessible to all but a few, not so much forbidden.

Lexus LFA Supercar at K&N

Supercars are just that - they're super - superior in every way with the transporters we commute in daily. They're tremendously faster and more powerful, created by skilled hands, not soulless robots, and they are capable of doing stuff beyond our shallow driving imaginations. Much like racecars, which falls within the genre most supercars are designed after. Every specialized nut and bolt that goes into these vehicles is put into place by a professional who takes the time and has the knowledge to manufacture something distinctively extraordinary. They are adventure and gadgetry, speed and sex-appeal, rolled into an elite work of art.

2012 Lexus LFA interior

Typically, when we think supercar its Porsche Carrera GT2, Ferrari, or Lamborghini type images that color our motoring fantasies, but with the debut of the 552-horsepower 2012 LFA, Lexus intends on expanding the profundity of those dreams. With a street value of around $400,000, and the added exclusivity of only making 150 cars available in the US, there's little to doubt that they will succeed.

Lexus USA owns but one LFA, a jet-black model used for advertising and potential customer events. The white one, which was offered to Motor Trend magazine for a zippy 12-hour only review, was on loan from Japan at substantial cost to the company - air freight alone was $40,000. Complicating things further is that the white one is what's referred to in industry terms as a "crusher", a preproduction prototype. It has no VIN or license plate, and rolls on non-DOT-approved tires, so testing on the street was out. To ensure the car was treated with the utmost respect at all times, two vigilant bodyguards watched over the car at all times. Yet, forlornly ironic is when it gets shipped back to Japan, it will most likely be smushed into a table lamp.

Hence, the editors of Motor Trend carefully divvied up their 12-hour test allocation in order to gather the most comprehensive results. The first one-third of the evaluation stipend was spent on riding the dynamometer at K&N's R&D, with Bert Heck and the dyno crew.

K&N dynos hundreds of cars a year in order to establish baseline figures and track performance of its products. This is precisely why they always function even better than advertised. Last year alone K&N cycled its dynos over 6,400 times.

"We have five dynamometers total, three chassis dynos, one for powersports applications and one engine dyno," explains Heck, Performance Kit Manager for K&N.

"A cycle is one pull on the dyno, once the vehicle is strapped to the dyno, we make a pull. What you do is bring the vehicle up to a certain rpm, then open the throttle wide open until it reaches a maximum rpm, then get out of the throttle, and let the vehicle come back to a idle. We let the vehicle sit for three to five minutes to get the operating temperatures back down to its normal operating range, and then it's ready to start over."

After successive pulls, and un- baffling the spine-tingling, Yamaha music department tuned LFA racecar acoustics, K&N experts had their raw numbers: 447.1 horsepower, 294.5 pound-feet of torque. After SAE correction, LFA's output drops to 430.3 horsepower and 283.1 pound-feet of torque. The car's speedometer flashed 207 mph before they lifted off the gas.

Motor Trend's Ed Loh, wrote, "Sure, there is no wind resistance on the dyno, but that only makes the exhaust note from the triple pipes sound that much more unholy -- like the union of a jet engine and Ducati race bike. No production V-10 has ever sounded this good."

Not only did Yamaha tune the V-10's sweet notes, they designed and built the engine - a virtual race powerplant that weighs in less than a typical street V-6. The entire LFA is in fact made of 65-percent carbon-fiber reinforced polymer, that's been finished up to strict aeronautics standards.

"Any doubts that the Lexus is anything but a legitimate supercar are absolutely gutted on the test tarmac. Only supercars manage to brake from 60 in under 94 feet and pull 1.05 g on the skidpad," wrote Loh.

LFA stands for Lexus Fuji Apex. Fuji Speedway is the Toyota owned racetrack where the ISF and LFA performance line was born and developed. Apex simply means it's the pinnacle flagship vehicle for Lexus.

After completing the four hour test at K&N Heck commented, "The car was out of control, the fit and finish of all that carbon fiber was just outstanding. Once the vehicle was on the dyno and making a pull, the engine was so smooth in the high rpm's that you could tell Lexus put a lot of engineering into this vehicle. This would be one cool car to have sitting in your garage."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

K&N's David Rampy Adds Victory Number Eight at Topeka NHRA National

27 May 2010

Rampy wins 22nd annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals.

However one wants to look at it, some racers just have certain tracks they almost seem to "own". Such is the case with David Rampy, one of the most successful sportsman competitor's on the NHRA circuit, and his "track" looks to be Heartland Park Topeka, in Topeka, Kansas.

Rampy competes in two categories on the NHRA circuit, Stock and Competition Eliminator.

When Rampy rolled into the most recent event, the 22nd annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals, he had already been victorious on seven previous occasions and several other final round appearances at the event.

Rampy, like many others, competes in two categories on the NHRA circuit, Stock and Competition Eliminator. Much like many other events, he was going rounds in both cars.

"I always tell people that the enjoyment I get out of it anyway is just driving both cars," he explained. "So naturally when you can go a bunch of rounds in both cars, it's just an awesome feeling. You're jumping out of one and into the other and you really don't have a lot of time to think about a lot of stuff and you just do it all naturally."

After his 331ci engine failed, causing an early exit for Rampy in his Comp Eliminator '32 Bantam during the previous event in Atlanta, the car was now fixed up with his smaller 323ci spare engine and ready for qualifying at Topeka.

"The spare engine is a little bit smaller, so we can actually take a little weight out of the car. We put the new motor in and went out for the first qualifying run and it just made an awesome run," said Rampy.

"There are just some races where things fall into place," he continued. "I felt like we were one of the fastest cars there, except for Bruno Massel. Of course the air got really bad and being naturally aspirated it really hurts. It hurts everybody except those who have some type of supercharger, turbocharger or whatever it may be."

Rampy felt that Massel would be the one guy he would really have to beat and with being on opposite sides of the ladder, that chance wouldn't come until the final.

"When Bruno broke during the quarterfinals, that kind of opened the door up a little bit wider," Rampy added. "Last year that is who I ran in the finals and he beat me, so I was looking forward to us meeting up again in the final."

Rampy was also doing very well in his The Racers Edge/K&N F/SA 1969 Camaro and made it all the way to the quarterfinals in Stock, when Nick Folk just nipped him by four thousandths of a second at the stripe, in an excellent drag race.

But it was Rampy's 1932 Bantam that would carry him to the finals in Comp Eliminator and a first time ever match up with Lou Ficco, Jr, who has been on a winning streak of his own lately.

"I had run the left lane all day and in the final I didn't have lane choice and he put me in the right lane," reflected Rampy. "And last year, I red-lighted in the right lane in the final. I was thinking about that. You know you need to have a good light, but that's that fine line that you're concerned with."

You don't win seventy-two previous NHRA National events and not understand the visualization of each round that it takes to get there.

"I made a couple of tiny adjustments to make sure I would go green in the final and it worked out well," he continued. "It went down about like I thought it would. I felt like we were real close in ET and the cars were close. It was going to come down to who got the better light."

Rampy nailed it on the head and his opponent at the starting line and it was pretty must over from there after his .009 to Ficco's .065 reaction time.

Sailing on to his seventy-third NHRA National Event win and now eight of those at the NHRA Summer Nationals Topeka event, Rampy was so pleased to be able to grab another Wally for all of his racing partners.

"K&N, you know they support us and this is part of the way we support them and give back," he said. "It makes a difference to me when you have people that help you and believe in you like K&N does with us. When you can deliver for them, it just makes you feel a little bit better."

Rampy will have one weekend off to enjoy his latest victory before heading out on a tough four week eastern swing, beginning with the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, June 3-6.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Jared Umbenhauer Wins Sportsman Racing at Big Diamond Raceway

27 May 2010

Jared Umbenhauer wins at Big Diamond Raceway

It took Jared Umbenhauer a few races to get up to speed in the Sportsman division at Big Diamond Raceway in Schuylkill Haven, Penn.

Jared Umbenhauer started his auto racing career in quarter midgets when he was 6 years old

Broken motors and mechanical failures relegated him to a couple disappointing finishes in the first two races of the season.

He was 20th in the opening night race and followed that up with a 28th place finish a week later.

But his team put a new motor in his car - actually the old motor from the car he raced last year at Big Diamond Raceway - and he has posted three podium finishes, including winning a race on April 23.

"The first couple races were frustrating because there was nothing we were doing wrong," said the 18-year-old Umbenhauer. "It's just weird stuff happening. After we put in the old motor, it gave me some confidence. We know this one is a good piece. We know it's going to stay together. It's going to stay under me for a while."

Umbenhauer started on the pole in the April 23 race. He didn't get a great start, though and fell to second place on the first lap.

"On the initial start, the guy on the outside got passed me," said Umbenhauer, a senior at Eastern Lebanon County High School in Pennsylvania. "For eight laps I was following him. I was taking my time, waiting for him to mess up. I got him back on the top and from there on, I led the whole way."

He followed up his win with a pair of third-place finishes and was 13th place in the Sportsman standings at Big Diamond Raceway after the races on May 21. Doug Hendricks of Orwigsburg, Penn., was leading the Sportsman standings with 682 points. Umbenhauer was 231 points out of first.

"It's early," Umbenhauer said. "I got plenty of time."

Umbenhauer, who lives in Richland, Penn., started his auto racing career in quarter midgets when he was 6 years old. He made an interesting switch to BMX and raced bikes for a couple years before returning to cars. His older brother got into modifieds and the two worked on his car until Jared Umbenhauer was old enough to race his own car.

"When my brother turned 16, he was old enough to race," Jared Umbenhauer said. "My brother got a sportsman modified and I was helping him out on weekends. When I got old enough, then I started."

Jared Umbenhauer said he would eventually like to race on one of the NASCAR Modified tours, but he wants to win a Sportsman championship first. He was 14th and won one race in the Sportsman division at Big Diamond Raceway last year.

"We just want to maybe get three wins, and top five in points would be nice," Umbenhauer said. "It's been up and down, but we've been racing pretty good." K&N provides mostly product support for Umbenhauer's race team.

"I've always used K&N filters," said Tom Umbenhauer, Jared's dad. "Anything helps with a family-run race team."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

North American Rally Champion Andrew Comrie-Picard Wins at Oregon Trail Rally

27 May 2010

Rally car racing puts the "X" in extreme automobile racing. It's a motorsport that requires a very unique set of skills, which makes it a huge fan favourite at the X-Games. And, North American Rally Champion Andrew Comrie-Picard proved once again why he sits at the very pinnacle of the sport by winning the very demanding Oregon Trail Rally. Comrie-Picard theToronto, Ontario racer, and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey, driving in their NOS Energy Mitsubishi Evolution led almost the entire event on the way to their win. It was in fact the first time in Rally America history that the podium was an all Mitsubishi affair.

Comrie-Picard and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey, driving in their NOS Energy Mitsubishi Evolution

Rally racing is all-season motorsport that sees drivers and co-drivers take modified road cars to the very limits as they traverse over courses covering hundreds of miles of gravel, dirt or snow-covered roads, or slick mud and extreme heat. The Oregon Trail Rally took place over 100 miles of competition on a course that that threw pretty much all of that at the racers this year, except perhaps the extreme heat. The conditions that make this race so difficult to overcome though are the very reasons why it's so supremely satisfying when you win. This year, by the end of the day two, 24 out 64 teams that entered were gone.

"The Oregon rally has a wide variety of roads over three days, from tarmac and broken tarmac at Portland International Raceway on Friday, to tight, twisty high-altitude work on Saturday, to wide-open 120 plus miles per hour runs through silt beds on Sunday. You have to do well on all the different sections to win it, and I'm happy we were strong throughout," remarked Comrie-Picard.

With this victory Comrie-Picard is now tied for fourth place with Dave Mirra in defending his Rally America Championship.

"This year there are no 'drops' in the Rally America Championship - every event counts. Last year we were leading at this point, but this year we crashed out on one event and had a driveline failure in another, so we're in fourth. There are only two events left so it will be an effort to win the championship, but you never know what's going to happen to the other guys, and we never give up."

We wondered what challenged Comrie-Picard most and what gave him the most gratification - rally car racing, drifting, or competing at the X-Games?

"That's an interesting question. Each of those competitions is different, but there's interesting crossover too. Rally and X-Games use a similar car and driving style. Drifting and X Games are both super-intense short-format races. Rally is about speed, drift about style and speed, and X-Games about speed with some style," explained Comrie-Picard.

"I like all of them to be honest, and developing my skills in each helps with the others. I'm really excited right now about the addition of SuperRally to the X-Games, and the three national-level, wheel-to-wheel Rallycrosses we'll be doing in New Jersey in the fall. Think of the X-Games rally, but with six cars wheel-to-wheel. It's going to be sensational."

"K&N has been a longtime partner with our team and we value the relationship," commented Comrie-Picard.

"I use their air filters exclusively, and frankly, have done so for the last fifteen years, even before we had a direct relationship. For what we do, through silt and dirt and sand and water, there's nothing better."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.