Jackson racing looks to defend belle rose 09’ title

JACKSON RACING LOOKS TO DEFEND BELLE ROSE 09’ TITLE

<img src="http://www.insidetopalcohol.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219&thumb=1&d=1271038484" align="right" borders="0"/>Belle Rose, LA – Coming off a runner-up finish at the prestigious Mac Tools NHRA US Nationals, Rick Jackson’s potent Top Alcohol Funny Car team heads into Cajun-country this weekend to contend for another NHRA Divisional ‘Wally’, as No Problem Raceway will host the 4th NHRA Division 4 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event of the 2010 season.

The Santa Clarita, Calif. based Centre Pointe Collision Center / FireIce.com Ford Mustang TAFC team returns to their home division for another crack at the Belle Rose, LA event title. Last season, team driver Tony Bartone, who has won NHRA National Event titles in three divisions, took the ‘Wally’ back to his Boca Raton, Fla. home with consistent elapsed times produced by the tuning talents of Steve Boggs. Last week at “The Big Go”, the Centre Pointe / FireIce.com team produced a career best elapsed time of 5.498 seconds to earn the pole position. For team owner Rick Jackson, the performance gained at Indy, is hopefully the beginning of what will be a solid ending to the 2010 NHRA season.



“We have been creeping up on the tune up of our car for the past year or so,” noted Jackson, the owner of Centre Pointe Collision Center in Southern California. “When we put the .49 on the board at Indy, we were very surprised, but we also knew the car had the potential. Our team has worked very hard on establishing good procedures and operates very professionally. Heading down to Belle Rose, our goal will simply be to improve on our consistency, establish a good base-line in qualifying and move forward from there. I am optimistic, if we do our job, we will have a good shot at defending our race title from last season.”

Last year at this same event, Bartone and the Centre Pointe team strung together three consecutive 5.68 second ET’s in eliminations to capture round wins over Kebin Kinsley in round one, Burl Brown in the second stanza and Steve Harker in the money round. The consistency of the Boggs tuned Ford Mustang is the key to victory, according to Bartone.

“When we go out and put a good solid number on the board in qualifying, we tend to do very well in eliminations,” noted Bartone. “The key to these cars is to steadily improve each run during the event. A Blown Alcohol Funny Car is one of the more difficult cars to drive, but when Stevie has the car humming, running hot, straight and normal, it makes my job easier. The boys on the team, Chris, Lew, Javier, Scott and Rick are very good at what they do. I look forward to another successful race weekend in Louisiana.”

To learn more about Rick Jackson’s Top Alcohol Funny Car team, please visit their website at http://www.rickjacksonracing.com.