Frankie Taylor Wins ADRL Pro Extreme Event

[Brian C]

Frankie Taylor Wins ADRL Pro Extreme Event

(07-28-10) Baytown, TX – The Texas heat was expected when we pulled in to Houston Raceway Park for the completion of the March rain delayed Inaugural UTI Texas Drags this past Friday. We felt confident with running in these conditions since this is our hometown track.

Considering his Mad Man nickname, it was no surprise that Frankie towed his new solid black car to the staging lanes even though he only has a few full passes on his Jeffers Pro Car built 2005 C5 Corvette. Relying on his current 6th place qualifying spot from March, his fourth qualifying attempt Friday morning was nothing to brag about but allowed us to gather data on the current track conditions.

After a pedal fest win in the first round against Quain Stott in his LeeBoy’s sponsored Corvette, we then paired up against last year’s ADRL Champion Todd Tutterow and his Barwa’s Team. We barely beat Todd with a margin of victory of only 0.0393 seconds (11 feet).

It appeared that the Texas drivers had a slight advantage since all semi-finalists were Texans. Gene Hector ran against Frankie but Small Block Mafia’s car backfired and had to be pushed back off of the line. With this single pass, we gave the crowd something to cheer about while running 3.782-seconds at 198.70 mph.

The Frankie-Gaylen Show is a common sight at many local TOPMA finals but it was great to see this happen on a larger scale at an ADRL national event. The LenMar Motorsports car took the tree but Frankie grabbed the win and the Minuteman Trophy on the back end with a solid 3.765-seconds pass. Congratulations to Gaylen Smith and his crew for a strong showing and making it to the finals.

This win landed us in first place in the championship point’s race by the end of Friday night. “To win with a brand new car in our first national event was impressive but I know this car will get quicker and stupid fast”, smiled Frankie. “Now that was fun to take the win at my hometown track in front of my family and friends”, he continued.

We then finished qualifying for the UTI Dragpalooza VI on Saturday morning. With an impressive run of 3.796-seconds at 200.71 mph in the heat of the day, we were unable to improve on our number two qualifying position.

We found ourselves going up against another Texan in Steve Wiley with his Hector-Wiley Motorsports Corvette in the first round of eliminations. Unfortunately, the hot track could not hold our tune up as we shot to the right wall quickly. The car received minor damage and ended our day early. We in turn dropped to 2nd place in the championship point’s race behind Joshua Hernandez due to his impressive win on Saturday.

We have very limited sponsorship and our crew is made up completely of volunteers. To win a national ADRL event makes us proud and shows how the hard work can pay off compared to the other well funded teams. Coming off of our win Friday allows us to have high expectations for continued success going into Illinois. Look for the Taylor Team to redeem ourselves quickly.

Special thanks to our sponsors: Haning Racing, Anglia Homes, Baudier Graphics, Conrad Racing Engines, Jeffers Pro Cars, NitroFog Photos, Mickey Thompson Tires, PMS Excavation, PolyDyn, Penray, Pyle Brothers, RGC Advanced Glass and Santhuff Shocks.