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Nick Folk Adds NHRA Stock Final Round at Brainerd to His Growing List of 2011 Accomplishments

07.09.2011

1999 B/SA Chevy Camaro at Brainerd International Raceway

Durand, Illinois resident Nick Folk has been on quite a streak as of late. From his runner-up finish, in the pea soup foggy conditions, during the World Super Pro Challenge at Mid-Michigan Motorplex, to his Quick Rod win at the IHRA Nitro Jam in Martin, Michigan, Folk most recently added another feather to his season when he drove the Folk family's 1999 B/SA Camaro to the final round during the 30th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway.

NHRA Stock Car Racer Nick Folk at 30th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals

Folk was very aware of the other B/SA entries during qualifying for the NHRA event. "Our 1999 Camaro is one of the quicker ones in the country, but it just so happened to be that at that race there were two of them there that were quicker," he confessed. "We didn't make an all-out run during all of qualifying. It's really kinda hard to get more than the first three rounds correct, as far as staying away from a heads up run. It's really the only reason, that and to try to position yourself on the bye side of the ladder. Stock is definitely a class where you have to pay attention to qualifying and where you place yourself."

After all the dust settled from qualifying, Folk's first round match up would be with Charles Blossom and his 2004 SRT-4, who was a much slower entry and had the first chance to go red. Folk was more than ready with his .008 light, but as mentioned blossom lit up the wrong color bulb by .003 and sent Folk to round two for his paring with Dan Jeska and his 1972 Duster. This time it would be a clean start on both side s of the tree and Folk was able to grab just enough of the stripe to shut out Jeska.

"Round three, I feel that was my lucky round," he admitted. "I had heads-up run that round where the guy was faster than me, but he turned it red, so I guess he thought that my car was faster than it was. The guy had me outrun my six hundredths and then he turned it five thou red. So that for sure was a lucky round. I really should have been headed home after that round Saturday afternoon."

Come Sunday morning, Folk must have had a very special breakfast as he posted a near perfect light in round four. "I woke up Sunday morning and said I need to drive, wake up," he joked. "My .001 to his .060 really gave me a lot of room down there at the stripe. It was actually fairly easy at that point."

Following his quarter final victory over T. J. Diekema, Folk went on to the semifinal round to pair up with Alex Wiese and his 1979 F/SA Corvette. "The kid [Wiese] laid down a decent run at four cars then, at least for Stock Eliminator terms," he pointed out. "He was thirty and probably going dead-on and I was .013 on the tree which just gave me plenty of room to do what I needed at the finish line."

After the fantastic string of reaction times Folk had racked up during all of the previous rounds of eliminations, he had an uncharacteristic .044 light in the final against Ron Mattson, and his worst light of the weekend. Doing the best he could to make up for it at the finish line, Folk took a ton of the stripe and came out on the wrong side of the pair's double breakout.

"You know you get yourself so hyped up for late rounds before you get to the final and I don't know," he explained of his state of mind before the Stock final. "I can sit here and picture the whole thing. I didn't go through my normal thought process after the burnout, I don't know. I guess I was just thinking, you're in the final, don't worry about it. I was so upset with myself on the ride home."

With the extensive trail of recent finals for Folk in all kinds of classes, cars and tracks, including this NHRA National Event final round appearance, he truly has a lot to be proud of, although being the caliber of racer that he is, will concentrate on where he can make improvements before his next race at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. "When you race for a partial living like I do, you have to go back and look at what you did or didn't do," he continued. "I really don't know what I was thinking about in that final."

The Folk family, which also includes patriarch Ron and brother Brian, have been not only users but true believers in the full line of K&N Engineering products, from oil filters to high performance air filters on their entire stable of race cars. "Dad and Brian have been using K&N products since before I even got really involved as heavy as I am," he pointed out. "You know Dad is big into the motor side of things, keeping them all alive and so on. We hear of other racers having problems of one sort or another with their oil filters. I tell them they shouldn't being screwing around with all that and all they need to do is put a K&N Oil Filter on and you're over it. You don't have to worry about the oil filter at all. They more than do the job. Why people want to make things so difficult when they can just use K&N products is beyond me. We all have enough to worry about out there, this just totally takes care of one of them."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Last Minute Event for K&N's Dave Connolly Turns Into Victory During zMax NHRA Divisional

07.09.2011

Most may wonder when Dave Connolly could possibly find the time to race himself with all that he has on his plate these days, including the crew chief position he currents holds on Erica Enders NHRA Pro Stock team, let alone not be rusty when he does. After a very last minute decision, Connolly chose to run the NHRA Div 2 event at zMax Dragway, just a short drive away from his home in North Carolina and not only did he compete on his "off weekend" but drove his 1981 Chevy Malibu all the way to the Super Street [10.90 Index] Wally.

NHRA Divisional Driver Dave Connolly

Connolly took a few minutes to replay the weekend's events following his full day of testing with Erica Enders on the Monday following his win. "I wasn't even planning on going since we have been so busy at the shop. Erica is a slave driver, she's been making us work too hard," Connolly joked, making sure she heard him in the background. "I didn't even have a motor in my Malibu. I was going to put it in, then going to put it in, but we kept working twelve hour days. By the time we got to Friday I thought, I'm not even going to go to that race. I'm going to take the weekend off and just go enjoy myself."

Once a racer, always a racer and come early Saturday morning, the idea of not competing when he had the chance, didn't sound like much fun. "Got up at five-thirty on Saturday morning and decided I wanted to race," he confessed. "So I went to the shop, put a motor in, thanks to a buddy of mine who came and helped me and off to the track I went."

He not only competed at the divisional event in Super Street, but also Top Dragster. "I made real good runs in the dragster, but ended up getting my butt kicked in first round," he admitted. "I make two horrible runs in the Malibu and I end up winning the race. That's just how it goes some days."

As he made his way through the early rounds in Super Street, Connolly continued to tweak the delay in his box to get better and better reaction times, and by third round they were almost too good. "I just started pulling a little more out of the box each time," he explained of his perfect light in round three. "Might have got a little carried away in my round against Mullis, but I had heard that the round before he had a .001 light and he can definitely lay down a run at any time, so it was a 'two-for-one' special [laughed]. I certainly wasn't trying for a perfect bulb, but it popped up there. I'm not near good enough to set up that tight, that was on accident."

With the round win, it gave Connolly a bye in the quarterfinals and he let the remaining contestants in the field know, that he was ready for what they may have for him with his dead-on index 10.906 pass. "After the ninety on the bye run and the good light, I knew where we were and kinda got the groove down for the last few rounds," he said.

Connolly tightened up just enough for the semifinal, that his .005 at the hit gave him .013 advantage over John Rollins which he near effortlessly turned into a round win. Rollins taking a huge chunk of stripe and went under the index by .015, Connolly quite safe, posting a 10.941.

Off to the final, Connolly was looking for his second Super Street win of the season and to do so he would need to get by Don Garbinski in his 1971 Challenger. Again being a terror on the tree, Connolly had a .016 reaction time advantage and he used all but five thousandths of it at the finish line. Both drivers went under the index and Connolly grabbed the NHRA Div 2 Super Street Wally on his 10.877 to Garbinski's 10.856.

"It was really a lot of fun and funny all at the same time," Connolly said of his first time behind the wheel in a while. "Sometimes you can take racing a little too seriously and it will actually hurt you. You know this race was really fun. It was a divisional, it was thirty minutes from the house and one of the other employees in the shop was out there running his Super Gas car and we were just out there hanging out. There wasn't a lot of preparation or thought that went into this race, but once you get out there and start going a few rounds you start getting more focused and realize 'hey, you've got a shot at winning this thing', so you start taking it a little more serious."

With everything that Connolly did in his last second thrash to attend the race, including putting a motor in the car the same morning he left for the event, the one thing that he didn't have to worry about was the condition of lubrication system, thanks to his K&N oil filter. "It was actually an old Sunset motor that I have had for two years," he said. "That thing kind of needs freshened up. All I did was spun the K&N oil filter off of it, cut it open to make sure there wasn't anything in it. Spun a new one on, put oil in it and went. When you use K&N products, like their oil and air filters, you can do things like that. You know you are protecting your engines the best way you possibly can."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Ray Connolly Rules Over Super Gas Class at NHRA Div 2 Event for His First Victory at Beech Bend

07.09.2011

When you gotta make the next event, and points are on the line, longtime NHRA competitors, like K&N's Ray Connolly, won't let a little thing like hurting a motor stop them from getting to where they need to be. Connolly took care of business, both with the engine swap he needed to make, and the field of Super Gas entries to pick his latest NHRA Wally during the Lucas Oil Series Division 3 event at Beech Bend Raceway Park, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

NHRA Super Gas Racer Ray Connolly

"Well, I hurt the motor in my Corvette Roaster at the IHRA event in Martin," said Connolly. "So I took the motor out of my dragster along with putting a new fuel system on it and everything seemed to work out alright."

Even though there was a test session available for racers on Thursday prior to the event, Connolly was still trying to get everything buttoned back up and was unable to take advantage of any additional track time, but missing an extra chance to get the combo tuned in, didn't hurt him one bit.

Connolly drove well right from the start, first sending home Scott Lemen in round one and a memorable round for him in round two, when he managed to send Trisha Allen packing. "I thought I was fast, she's so slow I didn't catch her until late," he said of the round. "I tried to make it really tight and well it ended up being one thousandth. You know that could have went either way. I was like ninety-five to her ninety-one and I just killed way too much."

He then went on to get by Xenia, Ohio's Tim Gillespie in his 1933 Ford, when Gillespie was a little too anxious on the tree and allowed Connolly a shot to really dial his car in for his round four pairing with Mark Sanders. It was there where some great top end driving skills came into play, as Connolly turned his being .012 behind on the starting line into a dead-on the index run at the stripe and sent Sanders away on a 9.883 breakout.

Now that the Super Gas field was down to five cars, Connolly was wondering who was getting the bye into the semis. "I asked in the staging lanes, 'Who gets the bye" and Kevin Kleineweber just smiled," he pointed out. "I said to him, 'So it must be you' and he goes yeah but you are running for it and I laughed 'Oh, OK'.

It was at this point Connolly could see that his chances of sewing up the Super Gas title were getting stronger and his shot at the most important bye of the race, into the final, was just a win light away. First, he needed to seal the deal against Ray Sawyer. Like so many of his earlier rounds of the weekend, Connolly was deadly at the finish line, this time it was a .003 margin and Connolly taking the holeshot win with his 9.934 to Sawyer's 9.925.

Now with his smooth free pass into the final where he showed that he was dialed in by putting a 9.898 on the board, he would be ready for the final round match up with 2011 Jeg's All-Star Super Gas Champ, Rusty Cook.

"Oh yeah, we have raced each other a lot over the years," noted Connolly when asked about Cook. "He's been really hot this year and well, running him or Kevin [Klineweber] would have made for a tough final."

In another absolute squeaker at the stripe, where it could have been anyone's game, Connolly came out on top for his first ever win at the Bowling Green event, with a .001 margin at the stripe or a mere five inches. When both cars are almost evenly paired in mile-per-hour, Cook's 165.54 to Connolly's 164.39, it makes for a heck of a drag race, as both drivers stare at each other going across the line in their respective Corvette Roadsters.

"I've been to the semis there, but that is really about it," admitted Connolly. "I've never been able to finish it there, so it felt really good. The win also came at a really good time."

Meanwhile, just two hours earlier Connolly's son Dave had wrapped up his respective race for the Super Street Wally during the NHRA Div 2 event at zMax Dragway in North Carolina. "No actually I didn't, but my wife was with me," when asked if he was able to personally keep tabs on Dave's plight for his final. "She was letting him know what was going up here and letting me know how he was doing, so he and I didn't actually talk until my race was over."

"I am really happy to get this win for everyone that supports what we do, including K&N," he said. "They have nothing but the best products, we really appreciate the help that they provide for us and our cars. I am looking forward to making some changes over the winter to my Super Gas car and going with a special molded K&N air filter like fellow K&N racer Craig Anderson has on his car. There isn't a whole lot of room with what I have to work with and it's the R&D that the guys do at K&N to make special pieces like they do for situation like this that just can't be beat. They understand sportsman racing, because so many of them are racers themselves and they listen to what our needs are and make things happen."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Shane Stewart Finishes Second in the 51st Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals

07.09.2011

Shane Stewart recently took second place at the 51st Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals

Shane Stewart recently headed for Knoxville, Iowa, with anticipations of racing in the Knoxville Nationals. Arriving at the destination, Stewart prepared to race at a venue of which throughout the years he had grown to appreciate, as he had raced there many times before.

Upon showing up at Knoxville, Iowa to race in the Knoxvile Nationals, Shane Stewart was prepared to race at a venue a where he had raced many times before.

"We felt that we had a good chance of doing well," recalled the driver. "We always seem to run good at Knoxville. We had won the 360 Nationals there the year prior, and had finished on the podium in the Knoxville Nationals last year. The Rockstar/Makita car always runs good there. Our Westmar Engines were running strong, and our A.R.T. cars were working good all week."

Referring to the competition, he continued, "You have to have everything go well and work together to be successful at that event. The competition is the toughest it will be all year at this event. Every team brings their best equipment, because they want to be a Knoxville champion."

Lining up 17th in the 410 class of the 51st Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals, the driver had fifty laps to make up a lot of ground prior to crossing the finish line. As soon as the race was underway, Stewart began working his way to the front of the pack. In fact, he had already passed five cars when the race was stopped for the second time in the 14th circuit.

Immediately upon the restart, Shane Stewart didn't waste any time overtaking his competitors. Passing fellow drivers, Brian Brown and Sam Hafertepe Jr. in short order, he had already worked his way into the tenth position by the fifteenth lap. During the next two laps, Stewart muscled his way around Tim Shaffer and Mark Dobmier's cars and continued his quest to overtake all drivers that might stand between him and the podium.

After the teams refueled and embarked upon the final half of the race, Shane Stewart began the remainder of his stellar run from sixth place. Quickly working his way around Dale Blaney, the driver then found himself in a battle with Jason Meyers, and took over the forth spot when his competitor experienced a mechanical failure in lap 35.

Six laps later, Stewart took possession of third place and eventually slid into the second spot with only two laps to go. Although he was obviously on a roll and had made up an astonishing amount of ground during the first 48 laps of the race, there weren't enough laps remaining to catch Donny Schatz, who ultimately took the checkered flag.

Of course, Shane Stewart would have preferred earning the win, but the driver was also aware that he had made quite an accomplishment. "We started in the 17th spot and right away we started to pass some cars," explained Stewart. "On the mandatory fuel stop we were running in the sixth spot. Lap forty-seven is when we passed Sammy Swindell for second and at the end of the race were within a couple of cars to Donny. This was a very hard race to make, let alone do what we did as a team coming from the back. We were all real happy about our performance."

When asked if proper maintenance can be credited for a portion of his team's success, Stewart said, "We have used K&N products for four years now, and we could not be more happy with the quality they provide. Our engine builder says that our motors look great every time they take them apart. When we won the 360 Nationals this year, the engine we won with had 21 nights on it. You cannot do that without having a good air system on your engine."

In closing, Shane Stewart said, "We would like to thank Rockstar, Makita, Lucas Oil, ART chassis, and Wesmar Engines. We could not do what we love to do without these guys."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Michael Vaters Builds Monster School Bus Called Higher Education

07.09.2011

Michael Vaters' Monster School Bus called Higher Education. Photo by Dave Brown.

Michael Vaters is a 30-year veteran of the Monster Truck scene. His "Black Stallion" entries have been a fixture since 1984, being one of the first 12 monster trucks built to compete as the finales at tractor pull events when the genre was brand new. Vaters' driving skills evolved with the sport through the 1990's as the vehicles themselves grew in popularity and technical complexity. Today, he is considered one of the most versatile drivers in the sport. Vaters says "I have watched the sport evolve from crawling over cars to the high-impact sport it is today."

Ford Powered K&N Black Stallion Monster Truck. Photo by Dave Brown.

Michael Vaters still wheels the all-Ford Powered K&N Black Stallion and he is still a force to be reckoned with. The Vaters have added a new addition to the team, a Monster School Bus dubbed Higher Education. Higher Education is driven by long time crewmember and family friend Jimmy Tracey.

Vaters has always been a big fan of Ken Nelson and his drag racing, wheel stander Cool Bus. Ken and Mike have talked about the monster bus for about 5 years before the actual build began. Vaters stopped by Ken's hometown in Ashland OH to get measurements and dimensions of the Cool Bus wheel stander. Vaters picked up a styrofoam fiberglass mold of the front top of the bus where the flashing lights are. That was the launch pad for the monster bus build. Michael has been building his own molds and fiberglass body parts as well as parts for other monster truck drivers for a couple of years now. They built two fiberglass sections to make up the roof and a fiberglass front clip.

This Monster School Bus called Higher Education is driven by Jimmy Tracey. Photo by Dave Brown.

The sides of the bus are built from fiberboard donated by Capitol Building Supply in Hagerstown MD, a long time sponsor and supporter of the Black Stallion racing team. Vaters designed and engineered the new bus with very specific ideas and plans; building it stronger to withstand the abuse that a monster truck goes through. Because of this and many man-hours in the shop by the Black Stallion team it was completed in 13 days. Higher Education is built in 3/4 scale. The paint (school bus yellow) was provided by PPG and painted by the Stallion crew in house. Vaters wanted the bus to have all the details to make it look as realistic as possible. Vaters fabricated black rub rails to run down the sides and even installed flashing lights and a flip out STOP sign. "We knew Higher Education would be a popular truck but our expectations have been blown away with the response we have gotten from fans this summer" states Vaters when asked about how the kids like the bus.

Most recently, Michael Vaters Jr. stepped into his dad's drivers seat behind the wheel of the Black Stallion for his first freestyle run at an event. Michael Jr has been a professional freestyle motocross rider since age 16 performing at events all over the US and Canada. He grew up around monster trucks traveling around with his Dad since before he could walk. His upbringing in the sport and knowledge of how the trucks work showed as he ran the Black Stallion like a pro with a fast paced astounding 5 minute run hitting all the obstacles and thrilling the fans. Mike Vaters Sr. said "It has always been a dream of mine that Mikey get behind the wheel and drive for our monster truck team. It would be great to see him continue on with the Black Stallion when I can't drive anymore. What parent wouldn't want that but ultimately it is his choice."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

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