Mansfield’s Rookie IHRA Pro Stock Season Diary

| Image Archive | Matt's Image Archive | Contact |

Rob Mansfield’s Rookie IHRA Pro Stock Season Diary By Rob Mansfield 9/9/04

The World Nationals at Norwalk rained out half way through the first round of eliminations and have been rescheduled to race on October 9th. The good news is that we will be going back because the Wilson Manifolds’ Pontiac Grand Am finally qualified and did so in a big way. We were the number one qualifier, posting a 6.552 at 212.53 mph, setting the track record! Additionally, our car won Best Engineered Pro Car as a bonus! It was an amazing weekend, even with the torrential rains and the unfortunate six-week delay until eliminations can continue. It’s hard to believe that is only the fifth event we attended and in our first successful qualifying we grabbed the number one spot.

Let me tell you what has happened since my last journal.The last race we actually went to was Milan where we were unable to qualify. That was more of the same, which was why I was unable to bring myself to write a journal article for that event. We had determined not to attend the Canadian races due to travel time and only having one motor at the time. Then we also missed the Northern Nationals due to Hurricane Charlie (remember our race shop is in Winter Park, Florida). We are an always-evolving team. As, team member, Mikey Baker likes to say, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” To us that means we are always looking for and doing more. The team that never says “Can’t.” At Milan, we stayed over to do some extensive shock testing.

In the time since Milan, we changed engine builders to Ron Hutter Racing Engines, who is well known for wins and championships in NASCAR Series Truck, Busch Series and Cup Racing, as well as, doing R&D for GM’s racing programs. We have been waiting on our new motor program to come together. We are all thrilled to have Ron and his staff on board with us and look forward to more exceptional motor performance from them. What an asset they have been to our team.For this race, Billy Dingman and Mikey Baker came to town on Tuesday to put the motor in the car at Hutter’s shop in Chardon, Ohio. The rest of us (Bob Birchmeier, Justin Elkes, Keith Wilson, Denise Mansfield, and me) arrived on Thursday afternoon to finish the prep work. In addition to our regular team, we had assistance from Ron Hutter and Rich Bertleff from Hutter Racing Engines, who stayed with us all weekend and did round by round tuning.

This motor is also equipped with a Wilson Manifolds sheet metal intake and Wilson’s shear plates, adding even more power to the great combination Ron developed for us. This was a new motor combination for us. We didn’t have time for any in car testing and Friday’s first round was qualifying was it’s first run ever in the car. Hutter, of course, had Dyno tested it so we knew it was going to give us more power than we had before. So, as great as it performed this weekend, we know that there is more to come once we learn what the motor likes and can tune to match it.

Our program is still in its early stages of development and we have every expectation of being a strong contender in the 2005 season.On Friday, we ran first round qualifying at 2:00 p.m. in the heat of the day. We ran a 6.636 at 211.93 mph in the left lane and were in the sixth spot. We went back to the pit to do some tuning and our between rounds routine. We knew we would improve in the next session, but it rained for the second round. It was cancelled and they called it a day at 9:00 that night...

I knew the car had a great run but I didn’t suspect we were number one until Carl Baker told me at the scales and the crew confirmed it when they picked me up.

...I want to close by saying “Thanks” to everyone who has lent their support and assistance towards getting us here. Thanks to all the staff at Wilson Manifolds who shoulder the extra load when the rest of us go off racing and everyone at the Winter Park Race Shop. Thanks to Ron Hutter Racing Engines, Comp Cams, Red Line Racing Oil, Frank at AFT clutch, Matt from Lenco, and all the Pro Stock Teams who gave encouragement when we didn’t qualify and their congratulations when we did.