Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Deep in the heart of Texas a Wally awaits

DALLAS (October 12) – Sunny skies predicted, with an average daily temperature of 87, welcome the 31st annual AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals to the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.  We’re going to shake off those dark clouds of Reading and draw on that “One Bad Texan” mindset at John Hale’s home track. You know you don’t mess with Texas!

If you follow John Hale on social media, you know the importance music plays in his life. He starts each day by posting a song that inspires and motivates his day. Drawing on his love of music, and quoting the words of Steven Van Zant (guitar and mandolin with Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band), “Band members have a special bond. A great band is more than just some people working together. It's like a highly specialized army unit, or a winning sports team. A unique combination of elements that becomes stronger together than apart.” Sums up our Jim Dunn Racing team! We know we have the right combination to win; it’s just a matter of the stars aligning, and debugging the quirks, to turn on those win lights. No better time to do this than under the stars of Texas.

As for Reading, dismal is the word that comes to mind. Soggy and cold, we were only able to squeeze in one round of qualifying before the skies opened up, again, and again. The NHRA Safety Safari did an amazing job of attempting to dry the track (many times) in the hope we could get in more qualifying rounds. We did end up in the 10th position going in to round one of eliminations. How we got there wasn’t pretty; we made it was all that mattered at that point. An 8.614 at 75.88 is not the kind of run you get excited over but getting in on Sunday, any way we could, trumped the disappointment over that one qualifying run.

Unfortunately, Sunday did not go much better for us and closely resembled our qualifying run. We were up against Mike Smith for the first time in eliminations. Both of our cars shook the rear tires coming off the starting line. He managed to get his car hooked up again and finished the run. Just couldn’t get our car back up to speed and we coasted to the finish. Disappointed with the performance at Reading would be an understatement. After the elation of our team breaking in to the 3’s, and following those runs by additional 3’s, our hopes were high that a Wally was forthcoming. It just wasn’t meant to be, at least not in Reading.

Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Texas, John Hale prepares for this competition at his home track. Knowing that stars do align in Texas, the dream of bringing home a Wally seems to be closer than ever. For a team with a tight budget, saving on shipping fees for that Wally is an added bonus!

The City of Ennis and Texas Motorplex have partnered for a PreStage Fan Fest in Downtown Ennis on Wednesday, October 14, between 5:00-9:00 p.m. We will be there signing autographs at the Brookshire’s Autograph Session and hope you will be able to come out and enjoy roaming through pro and sportsman cars, food trucks, music and more.

Dallas is one of three remaining races in the 2016 NHRA season. After Dallas, our next race moves to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Nitro qualifying sessions are scheduled for 5:00 and 8:00pm, Friday, and 1:30 and 4:30pm, Saturday. Eliminations start at 12:00am, Sunday. Fox SPORTS - Finals October 16, 2:00pm-5:00pm (FS1) LIVE and October 16, 7:00pm-10:00pm (FS2) REPLAY. Qualifying October 14, 7:30pm-8:30pm (FS1) LIVE - October 15, 6:00am-7:00am (FS1) REPLAY, October 16, 1:00am-2:00am (FS1), October 16, 1:00pm-2:00pm (FS1) REPLAY. All times ET. Schedule subject to change; check local listings.
Photo Credit: Auto Imagery
RECAP from READING
Q1:  8.614ET 75.88mph
Qualified # 10
E1:   8.538ET 74.48mph