Modurstang Pro ET racer and Junior Dragster crew chief Nick Mugridge has posted a report of his Easter Nationals in which he came runner up in Sunday's eliminations.
Absolutely mega day. Wasn’t feeling very confident coming out of qualifying after ending up 20th in the 32-Car field. The Track and cold temperatures meant the car didn’t make a good lap until Q3 when the track finally rubbered in , a 10.30 & 10.33 wheel spinning then turned into a 10.18.
In Round 1 I raced against Warren Watts. The track had been scraped overnight which I found during Jr Dragster Round 1 so I knew if I didn’t make a change I’d be dialling blind. We dropped the tires 1.5psi from Qualy to try and minimise the spin. The car spun hard after the initial launch and the car shook bad but I kept with it and couldn’t see Warren so I lifted out and still ran a 10.17 on the 10.15 Dial.
Round 2 I faced Dave Rudd. I dialled a 10.14 based on the previous run and changing weather , Dave managed to get by me but Broke Out and I ran a 10.150 to move on.
Round 3 I raced against Victor Parsons who went Red on the tree handing me the win. While I ran a 10.09 on the 10.14 Dial.
In the Semi Finals it was a Jr Comp match-up betweern me and Tom Kaye for a spot in the Final. Both running Next Step Racing llc prepared, JKE Race Works powered Jr Comps. The race was settled by a Double Breakout with me taking the win with a 10.072 on the 10.09 to Tom’s 10.13 on his 10.18 Dial.
My first ever Final Round in Pro ET was with Stevie Gates in his new Camaro. Stevie had been on it all day. I knew I had a tough race on my hands and I wasn’t quite on top of my start line game this weekend trying to adjust to where the car wanted to leave with the new clutch Setup.
I managed a 0.072 light to his 0.029 , then toward the finish line I thought I could get there and scrub the brakes to make it tighter but Stevie got by me just on the line to take the win. I ran a 10.072 on the 10.06 Dial to Stevie’s 8.60 on the 8.58.
Looking at the ticket, I couldn’t get there even if I ran a perfect Dial. But Dad was riding with me this weekend and Luke also made it to the Semi Finals from the No.3 qualifying spot. In the end both dragsters were running awesome this weekend. We couldn’t be happier.
Thanks always go to my mum and brother who are patient with me and go along with my setup changes even when it looks like I don’t need to. To Matthew Seamarks who’s the best dude ever and makes running two cars and driving one so doable.
And to Scott Hauser at Hauser Race Cars who carried out the work on Luke’s new seat conversion and refreshing the motor in his Junior. Luke’s now super comfortable and the motor was deadly as well. Running exactly what we predicted every round and your GRIP tire softener works wonders. When juniors were suffering tire spin on the very cold and green track, Luke’s car hooked and went with no spin all weekend.
This weekend was a true test to see how we could manage two cars going deep in rounds. The only downside was my battery cried no more after the Final and forced me to push the dragster back to the pits, preventing me from driving back.
I can’t wait to jump back in again at the Festival Of Power end of April for Round 2 of the championship.
