Demke Out Early in Houston‏

Demke Out Early in Houston‏

BAYTOWN, Texas (April 29, 2013) – Maddern Racing, a team usually very capable of powering through to success in the face of adversity, was unable to turn a #2 qualifying position into late-round results at the rain-plagued O’Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston last weekend. A variety of problems came together to set the Top Alcohol Dragster team back a step.

Knowing they were short a qualifying session going into the race, the team set the car up to make a strong yet conservative pass during Friday’s sole qualifying session. Driver Chris Demke piloted the Peen Rite/OSI/801 Racing dragster to the second qualifying position, 5.36 at 264 mph, sitting behind rival Jim Whiteley.

“It was tough having only one qualifying session, but every other team was in the same situation. The track condition was vastly different from qualifying on Friday to eliminations on Sunday morning. After Friday’s qualifying run, we had the car set up aggressively, anticipating better conditions for Saturday’s qualifying session. Unfortunately it rained all day Saturday,” Demke said.

Saturday’s April showers, which dumped four to six inches on Royal Purple Raceway, washed away much of the rubber that had built up on the track surface. The rain also forced officials to cancel the remaining qualifying session and postpone first round of eliminations to Sunday morning.

“We were very rushed for first round on Sunday morning,” Chris stated. “We had electrical problems when we went to warm up the car Sunday. Specifically, our safety box, which automatically deploys the ‘chutes and shuts everything off in the case of a mechanical problem, failed and the car wouldn’t start. I suspect that it has something to do with the car being outside during the storms on Saturday. There was a lot of lightning and maybe it got zapped. I don’t know; that’s just a guess. We didn’t have a spare. I want to thank Jim Whiteley and his team for loaning us their spare safety box.”

On top of fixing the electrical problem, the crew was rushed to set up the car for green track conditions. The tune-up ultimately didn’t pan out, as first round opponent Lee Callaway slipped past Demke, running 5.39 to Chris’ close 5.42.

“I went out and looked at the track, made my decision, and flat-out missed the tune-up. I tried to make it run thirty-flat on a thirty-five racetrack. I thought I compensated enough, but the early numbers said we were over-aggressive. Lesson learned. Still trying to figure out the new car is quite the task right now. We didn’t learn a whole lot this weekend, only making two runs. I can’t wait to get to Topeka and get back at it. The more laps we can make, the better we’re going to be,” said tuner Adam Rhoades.

Demke concurred.

“You win some, you lose some. It hurts to lose first round at a race where we qualified #2. But that’s racing. We just have to pick up the pieces and head to the next race in Topeka.”

Maddern Racing, celebrating 20 years of competition in 2013, is a family-owned and operated NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster team based in Southern California. The Chris Demke-driven Peen Rite/OSI/801 Racing dragster is owned by Jerry Maddern and crewed by Adam Rhoades, Kevin Watson, Mike Demke, and Ron Mann. 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., 801 Racing, A1 Technologies, Boninfante Friction Inc., and Hoosier Racing Tire.

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Nate Van Wagnen
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