LE Tonglet happy with runner-up finish at Route 66 Raceway

A rejuvenated LE Tonglet gave a reminder Sunday to the Route 66 Nationals fans of what his drive to the 2010 Full Throttle series championship resembled when he reached the Pro Stock Motorcycle finals for the first time this season.

Taking advantage of a new tune-up on the Nitro Fish/Tonglet Racing Suzuki GSXR, Tonglet combined two red-light wins with a hole-shot victory over reigning series champion Eddie Krawiec to set up a meeting with Andrew Hines. 

“Our combination is definitely there now,” said Tonglet, who jumped into the fourth qualifying position on his last run.  “We made one more change before racing Hines and I left four-thousands of a second too soon.  We know we are going in the right direction. We ran pretty consistently all day. 

“There was nothing for me to do in the finals but shut it off.  We didn’t want to hurt the motor.”  Hines was timed in 6.940 seconds at 192.69 mph.

Angie Smith fouled out in the first round and Tonglet motored down the quarter-mile track in 6.984 seconds at 190.22 mph.  He was ready for Krawiec, leaving with a .022-second light and finishing with a 6.993 at 190.75 to Krawiec’s .048, 6.971 at 192.03.  The winning margin was four-thousandths of a second.

In the semifinal, Hector Arana went red and Tonglet went 6.855 at 188.65. 

Stanfield says Pro Stock Camaro ‘good to go’ for Summer Nationals

After three days of test runs at a drag track near Tulsa, Okla., Greg Stanfield believes he discovered the reason the new Nitro Fish/Coffman Tank Trucks Pro Stock Camaro was not performing like he thought it should.

“We have had issues in the last few races so we tested it against Kenny Koretsky’s GXP . . . and when we were finished, what it came down to was that we are down on horsepower,” commented Stanfield, who is the team’s engine builder.  “The good news is the Camaro is good to go.  There is nothing wrong with it.”

Stanfield and the Nitro Fish/Coffman Tank Trucks Camaro crew don’t have to wait long to see how well the car will run.  They will be in Topeka when the Dollar General NHRA Summer Nationals get underway at Heartland Park Topeka, May 18-20.

He drove the car into the semifinals in its initial race at Las Vegas last month, but three straight first-round losses dropped Stanfield from sixth to eighth place in Full Throttle series standings.

“We used Kenny Koretsky’s GXP to help find the answers,” Stanfield continued.   “We’ve had problems with the car at the last three races.  “We ran every motor we had in both cars to compare the results.  Now we have a lot or work to do.

“We did learn a lot and we were able to fix the other problems we found.”