“I love that Circle K on the car, I don’t love it when that body gets banged up,” said Hale, who is in his second season driving for Jim Dunn Racing. “There’s nothing more than we would like to do out here than do well for Circle K, but we’ve had some bad luck with that car.”
The first time Hale campaigned the Circle K body at the Southern Nationals (May 13-15) in Atlanta, the car’s engine exploded and the body 100 feet in the air. Hale was unhurt, but the body was destroyed.
At Bandimere, Hale skipped Q4 and then arrived for his first-round match-up with Alexia DeJoria with a body sporting the Oberto Beef Jerky paint scheme.
“We were trying to figure what we were going to do with that body,” Hale said about why his team didn’t run in Q4. “We got the OK from Circle K to run the Oberto body and that’s we ran here (Sunday at Bandimere), but we will have the Circle K on it back for Sonoma (July 29-31). Those things are so temperamental, and if everything is not right, things like that can happen. (Saturday, July 23 in Q3) we burned a piston in that car and the shutdown system shut the ignition and fuel off and I was a little late coming off the pedal. There was some heat on top of the blower and it just lit the leftover fuel on top of the motor there and it blew the burst panels out and the burst panels are really what ultimately broke that nose off the car. The blower did not come off, but the force from the burst panels is what broke that (body). We looked at it and the break was so clean you could shove it back together and someone can fix it. We will get an estimate on getting it fixed, but if it over a certain cost we will just sell it.”
Hale said Jim Dunn Racing team has a body that’s going to be wrapped with Circle K design Monday.
“It will be picked up Tuesday and I will be at Sonoma with the Circle K car,” Hale said.
After a tough first couple of days at Bandimere Speedway, Hale did have reason to smile Sunday as he upset DeJoria in the first round.
Both DeJoria and Hale’s Funny Cars had their motors quit at the same time and Hale coasted past DeJoria to the finish line.
Hale clocked a 4.303-second run at 240.64 mph. DeJoria came in at 4.324 seconds at 232.71 mph.
It was Hale’s first round win in 2016 eliminations as he came to the starting line with an 0-13 record before defeating DeJoria. Hale has competed in 41 career NHRA national events in nitro Funny Car. His best race performance was a runner-up effort at the Gatornationals in 2015 to Ron Capps.
Hale couldn’t extend his streak to two in a round as he lost to Robert Hight in round two at the Mile-High Nationals. Hale clocked a 4.161-second lap to Hight’s winning 3.997-second run.
Written by Tracy Renck Wed, 2016-07-27 08:00
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