VIDEO: Strong Speed Numbers for Ahten in Famoso Testing

Courtesy of THR5 Communications
Photo and video courtesy of Costabile Productions

 

McFarland, CA. – Johnny Ahten loaded up the new Ahten Racing truck and trailer and headed to the historic Auto Club Famoso Raceway last weekend for some testing and to put on a show for the Saturday Night Nitro event. What the Island Renovations/CleanBoost-801Racing/Fireman’s Brew team left with was even better. Two runs with trap speeds of 266+ mph proved they are moving in the right direction, and they captured some exciting video in the process.

“Since this was not a regular race, we decided to outfit the Stump Puller with a few video cameras,” said Ahten. “A few turned into four, which lead to some great video. My video guy, Chuck Costabile of Costabile Productions, was able to sync them all together and create a four camera angle video that highlighted our 5.53@266.8 run. We have made some changes to the combination and it really showed, added Ahten.

That afternoon blast down the Famoso quarter mile was with a 145° track temp. The elapsed time was not where Johnny would like it to be, but the thinking in the Ahten camp is it needed more fuel. Crew Chief Al Ahten concurred, and for the next run they fattened it up a bit. It shook the tires at the hit and Johnny shut it down. Ahten added, “For the night session we made a few adjustments and ran another 266 mile per hour run with a 5.51 elapsed time.  The plan now is for a bit more compression and we might throw some more fuel at it.  The weekend was a great success, we got down a 145 degree track, and then shook when it got cold, adjusted and got down a cold track, very happy with that. All we need are few more adjustments to get back into the .30s. We were also working the kinks out on our new race rig. I had quite a list going of things we still need or didn’t bring. It was a bit nerve-racking to turn and look for something and it was not there. By the next race we will have everything in place,” concluded Ahten.  

The Stump Puller’s next planned outing is scheduled for the Seattle Pacific Raceways’ Northwest Nationals Aug. Aug. 2-4. By then, Johnny and the crew will have the tune-up in place, the new trailer sorted out, and the desire to blast down the track even faster. For now they will have to wait, but at least they have some great in-car video to enjoy.