MANZO SETS NEW ALKY FUNNY CAR RECORD
A tip of the Agent's cap to Morganville, NJ's Frank Manzo, who set a new NHRA national elapsed-time record for Alcohol Funny Car this past weekend at Virginia Motorsports Park. Manzo initially shattered Jay Payne's old mark (5.519 seconds) with an unreal 5.469 e.t. at 262.44 mph.
"No doubt about it, the air here in Virginia this particular weekend is probably some of the best air I've ever seen. The grains of water, which measures how dry the air is, is very low. In an Alcohol Funny Car, that really increases thehorsepower," said Manzo, who clinched his 10th NHRA Lucas Oil Alcohol Funny Car title two weeks earlier at Reading, PA. "We went up there for the first (qualifying) run thinking the track wouldn't be that good until after the pro cars ran. We were surprised at how well the car ran with the track conditions we had. We went down the track and made a full run and we were very astonished to go 5.46. We had it detuned and a little calmed down, but we were lucky."
Maybe not so much lucky as just plain good, the Agent believes. On raceday, Manzo lowered the record to 5.454 in a second-round win over David Ray, went 5.455 in the semis against Mick Snyder, and topped off his weekend with a 5.486 win over Bob Tasca III (shown) in the final. (Todd Dziadosz photos) [10-17-2006]
HAGAN SETS TRACK RECORD; GETS NEW CAR FOR ’07
With temperatures diving below 40 degrees last Saturday night, Matt Hagan put an exclamation point at the end of a great season at Motor Mile Dragway by setting the track
record with an ET of 3.9830 at 183.52 mph. It came in the finalround against Todd Tutterow, who won the round by besting Hagan on the tree. Tutterow's margin of victory was only two hundredths of asecond.
Hagan was thrilled to have reclaimed the record, saying "I'm glad we got it back tonight. That was my mission coming in here. I told the guys 'win or lose, we're taking that track record home for the winter.'"
Here's a first look at Matt Hagan's new 1968 Camaro being built at Jerry Bickel’s Missouri shop for next season. [10-17-2006]
