CHANDLER, Ariz. (March 3) – Plagued with mechanical problems early in the weekend, Top Alcohol Dragster driver Chris Demke struggled to qualify and went out in the semifinals at the West Region opener at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park last weekend. The race paled in comparison to Demke's dominating performance at the Winternationals just weeks ago.
Demke was unable to make representative runs in both of Friday's qualifying sessions. The Peen Rite/OSI/Boost Performance Products dragster was making plenty of power, but it couldn't properly transfer the power to the Hoosier racing slicks.
“We went into the event thinking we were prepared for the fight. The car went into tire shake on the first qualifying run, forcing me to pedal twice to a 5.69. We later found that a bad batch of old clutch discs had been mistakenly installed and caused the shake. When I tried to leave the starting line on Q2, the car didn't move an inch – I didn't even get a reaction time. It turned out the gears in the reverser were shredded. It was a freak occurrence that we hadn't seen in our twenty years of racing,” Chris claimed.
The Maddern Racing team was outside of the field going into Saturday's one and only time shot, which was threatened by weather.
“We didn't expect to have the opportunity to make the third qualifying session. The forecast called for rain and it was raining when we left our hotel that morning. However, the sun was shining when it came time for us to make our final qualifying run. The car responded to our changes and ran a conservative 5.33 to put us in the show at fourth. The skies opened up and started pouring shortly after qualifying, so we got lucky,” Demke added.
The Jerry Maddern and Adam Rhoades-led team went into eliminations not knowing what the track could hold. They only had one full run on the new surface, and Saturday's rain altered the conditions further. The Peen Rite car's tune-up was aggressive enough to beat Garrett Bateman in a 5.30 to 5.34 first round race. Demke was consistent in his semifinal pairing with No. 1 qualifier Johnny Ahten, but his 5.33 couldn't top Ahten's 5.24.
“In retrospect, I'm sure we would've had a more aggressive tune-up capable of running with Ahten's 5.24 if we were able to make the first two qualifying runs without mechanical problems. We just didn't have enough data,” said the optimistic Californian, adding, “On the bright side, we leave Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park with the national points lead.”
The one through five Top Alcohol Dragster qualifiers at Phoenix were all protected by CleanBoost lubrication products, available through Maddern Racing sponsor Boost Performance Products.
Maddern Racing is a family-owned and operated NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster team based in Southern California. The Chris Demke-driven Peen Rite/OSI/Boost Performance Products dragster is owned by Jerry Maddern and crewed by Adam Rhoades, Kevin Watson, Mike Demke, Greg Rice and Robert Hadaller. For more information on Maddern Racing, please visit www.MaddernRacing.com.
Maddern Racing receives support from the following companies: Peen Rite Inc., Operational Solutions Inc., Boost Performance Products, B-G Detection, Afco, and LA X-Ray.
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