Brandon Lewis Gainesville wrap up

Lewis reaches semifinals in Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster driver Brandon 'The Kid' Lewis scored a semifinal finish during this past weekend's ACDelco Gatornationals at the famed Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Fla. Lewis and his family's Morrison Construction/TigerFlow Systems backed A/Fuel Dragster missed making their third career national event final by a mere .003 in his semifinal loss to eventual winner John Finke.

Lewis, 22, who is a surgical tech when not racing in Broken Arrow, Okla., qualified the family's dragster, which is tuned by his father Dave and Tony Volturo, No. 7 with a 5.475 second elapsed time at 261.88 mph. In round one, he defeated Division 1 hitter Dave DeAngelis with a 5.499 at 259.51 before squaring off with defending World Champion Bill Reichert in round two. Lewis used a great .015 reaction time coupled with a 5.358 at 265.27 mph to take out the champ and move on to the semifinals.

In his semifinal match up with Finke, Lewis grabbed the starting line advantage, only to be nipped by .003 of a second by Finke's 5.416 at 266.42 mph to Lewis' right-there 5.435 at 265.06 mph. At 260+ mph, .003 of a second is a mere 14 inches.

"We definitely gave it a shot this weekend," said Lewis. "I guess we should have stepped on it a little bit more in the semifinals. We left it identical to the .35 we ran in the second round, but the air got worse. We were shooting to run between a .40-.45, and it ran a .43, so it did what we thought it would do, Finke just stepped up to a .41. We're still learning how to tune this car on our own. We would rather go down the track and make a race out of it than give it up on the line by going up in smoke."

"We were pleasantly surprised by the .35 it ran against Reichert," Lewis continued. "We definitely had a different mind set in that round. Anytime you're running the Champ, you really have to go for it. That's what we decided to do, we decided to go for it and stepped it up. We were kind of rolling the dice, and hit our number. All in all, it was a good weekend, and we were glad to go some rounds for Morrison Construction, TigerFlow Systems, Lucas Oil, ATTA Tank, Unifirst and A-1 Auto Body. Hopefully we can have another weekend like that in a few weeks in Houston."

The next stop for the Morrison Construction/TigerFlow team will be the O'Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston, Mar. 27-30. The semifinal finish moves the team to seventh in national points standings.

TIGERFLOW Systems, Inc., was founded to provide aggressive solutions to difficult problems facing the construction industry. TIGERFLOW will seek solutions through design expertise, technical know-how and sales support to meet the needs of the next generation of commercial building. Today, TIGERFLOW has an international depth with major commercial, military, process, fire protection, municipal, and industrial site installations world-wide.


For more information on Brandon "the Kid" Lewis, log on the team's site at www.BrandontheKid.com

For more information on the team's marketing partner's fine products and services, visit the websites below:

www.TigerFlow.com - Aggressive solutions to difficult problems facing the construction industry.

www.ATTATank.com - For all of your auxiliary aluminum tank needs!

www.LucasOil.com - Keep that engine alive with Lucas Oil Products!

www.Unifirst.com - Uniforms that enhance your business image!

Contact: Will Hanna/ Pro Race Communications
Email: Will.Hanna@InsideTopAlcohol.com