TAN Driver Blog - Jeff Ashwell - TAFC

School is now out for the approaching summer, which for us means a lot more races coming up. So far this season, we've had 3 test sessions and 2 races. In fact, today, Father's Day, we plan on heading out to Woodburn Dragstrip to try and get in as many laps as we can to test some things. Living in the Northwest, our biggest Devil's Advocate will always be the weather. Both of our earlier planned 2-day test sessions ended prematurely due to rain, as did our Season Opener at Woodburn. The runs that we have made, though, have been very promising to us. We still have our late crew chief Norm Christensen's tune-up in our car and a set-up that he was working on last year before his untimely death.

So far we have made some of our quickest early numbers but now it's all about getting the clutch right to eliminate the nasty tire shake that has plagued us as well. At the Season Opener in Woodburn, we ran a smooth 5.83 @ 241 mph out of the box, but then up in Mission, Canada for the Lucas Oil regional, we couldn't get past 60 feet without feeling like my insides were going to shake out. Our hope is that if we can get that all sorted out that we can go into these next few races being competitive.

We have some tough competition in our division and we figure at the upcoming Lucas Oil regional race in Woodburn that there will be a lot of good cars there. Last year, there were 13 cars that showed and we were fortunate enough to be one of the quickest 8 to qualify. This year I imagine it will be just as tough, if not even more so. We have had a lot of great success at that event in the last few years. We've ran our quickest and fastest pass to date at this event, we've qualified 2nd and reached our first ever final round there in 2010, and in 2011 we qualified into a very tough field. This year's event will mark a major milestone for me as I turn the big 4-0 and there's no place I would rather celebrate being "over the hill" than in the winner's circle, holding a Wally.

Jeff Ashwell is the driver of the Wilson's Napa/Ashwell Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car. Find him on Twitter at @AshwellRacing.