Mike Matheos April 13, 2007: Website has been refreshed! Sept 1, 2006: Rossler Door Wars – Salem, Ohio We qualified #3 out of a record 17 cars in attendance at the fifth and final Rossler Door Wars for 2006 with a career best 4.34 @ 165mph. On our first qualifying pass we ran a career best MPH when we ran a 4.35 @ 165. We made some adjustments to the car and in the second qualifying pass we ran a career best ET with a 4.34 @162 mph. However after the second pass we experienced an electrical failure with one of our many electronic timers. It appears that the electrical contacts of the timer relay arched together and did not release at the end of the pass. The result was that the nitrous stayed on after the finish line for an additional 3 seconds. I quickly turned off all the electrical items manually in the car as the parachutes were deployed and the car slowed. However this greatly changed the air to fuel ratio and the result was a lean condition that damaged the engine and kept us from further competing in the event. We were fortunate to figure out this issue and a post race inspection showed no major damage to the block or cylinder heads. Most of the damage was contained to a few pistons. We plan to re design the pistons for next year to be more in line with the amount of nitrous we are using. In all we were pleased with the very close racing we had at all of the Rossler events this year and we look forward to the next Rossler Door Wars events in 2007 at Quaker City Dragway. August 12-13, 2006: NSCA – Thomson Dragway We entered second NSCA event for 2006 at Thompson Dragway in Chardon, Ohio and competed in the Top Sportsman class. We felt we had been moving up on a tune up that would work well for this single nitrous system class. On our first qualifying pass we had a career best 1.017 60’ time. The pass continued well as we went a 4.40 @160 at the half track mark. However our new hood scoop was stressed by the wind speed of its first 1⁄4 mile pass (previously we only had made 1/8th mile passes with this new hood scoop) and it lifted itself off the car at around the 1000’ mark. I drove the car to the finish line as usual and was happy to learn it still went a 7.04 @ 199 mph, even with the hood scoop missing for the last few 100 feet of the pass. Returning to the pit area to assess the next steps for our car Mike quickly went to work on repairing the hood scoop and our friend Carl Rossler helped me change out some transmission components to help our reaction time. With the transmission changed completed we soon learned from Mike that the scoop would need extensive repair that could only be done at our shop and that the fiberglass epoxy would need to cure overnight. We still wanted to test our new transmission components, so we elected to go the line on our next pass and only run the car to the 330’ mark to judge the transmission components and a slight move on the starting line tune up. The car responded well with another career best 1.014 60’ time and ran a 2.82 to the 330’ mark. We quickly down loaded the Racepak data from the on board computer and loaded the car into the trailer. We then quickly drove home to our shop in Atwater, Ohio (1.5 hrs away) to begin the fiberglass repair to the hood scoop. On Sunday morning, with the repairs completed, we went to into the first round of eliminations against the #2 car of Randy Jewel. On this pass we left together and we had another career best 1.010 60’ time. We were slightly ahead of Randy to the 330 mark however he moved up approx a 1⁄2 car length on us which he maintained to the finish line. We did manage to run a 6.90 @ 198 mph on that pass. In all we were pleased that we had our best ever 60’ times at this event and we were closer to gaining on the correct tune up for this special class. August 4, 2006: Rossler Door Wars – Salem, Ohio We qualified well (#2 - with a 4.38 @ 161 MPH) for the third Rossler Transmissions Door Wars at Quaker City Dragway in Salem, Ohio. We won the first round with a good pass of 4.37 @ 161 mph. Unfortunately we lost in the second round to Larry Higgenbottham. We still managed to run a respectable 4.36 to Larry’s 4.38. July 7, 2006: Rossler Door Wars – Salem, Ohio We qualified #2 at the third Rossler Door Wars with a 4.42 @161mph. We won the first two rounds of eliminations and bettered our qualifying time on each pass by running a 4.38 in the first round and a 4.37 in the semi finals. In the semi finals finals we lost lane choice going into the finals by only 0.003 seconds to John Decerbo. John placed in the less desirable left lane, so we made some adjustments to compensate for the lane change. At the launch we left together with John (our 0.035 to his 0.025 reaction time) and had our best ever 60’ time (1.016 60’ time) and was slightly ahead of John to approx 300’. At that point we started to slide around slightly in our lane and that allowed John to move up a few feet on us, which he then maintained the remaining distance down the track. We lost with a 4.40 to Johns 4.38. In all we were pleased with the great 60’ times we had on every pass on this day and we look forward to the next Rossler Door Wars event on August 4, 2006. June 24-25, 2006: NSCA – Cleves, Ohio We entered our first NSCA event for 2006 at Edgewater Raceway Park in Cleves, Ohio and competed in the Top Sportsman class. This class allows only one Nitrous System and provided us with a challenge to quickly learn the tune up settings to get our car to compete well. After a few tire shaking attempts we were able to back down the tune up to produce a clean 6.89 @ 192 mph pass. The 6.89 pass placed us #3 on the qualifying list, behind Randy Jewel with a 6.824 and Scott Merkel with a 6.847. After reviewing all of the Racepak data we decided on a tune up for the first round on Sunday where we were paired against the #2 qualifier Scott Merkel. After learning the lane we would get placed into we read the starting line and opted to take some power out of the launch to insure we would be able to leave without spinning and going into tire shake. At the launch our tune up really was on the conservative side and to make matters worse our opponent had a perfect .000 reaction time. Scott went on to take the win with a 6.85 @ 200 and later the win in the finals. We did manage to run 7.07 @ 199mph on our first round pass, but learned the single nitrous system tune up would be one that will take some work. We look forward to the next few Rossler Door Wars Quick 8 at Quaker City Dragway (first Friday night of each month) and the upcoming NSCA event at Thompson Dragway in Chardon Ohio on August 12-13, 2006. June 2, 2006: We qualified well (#2 - with a 4.38 @ 160 MPH) for the Second Rossler Transmissions Door Wars at Quaker City Dragway in Salem, Ohio. Unfortunately we got bit from the previous quick reaction times that we achieved in previous rounds. We had a 0.389 red light in the first round of the Quick-8. We also had a low ET (4.40 @ 160) in the second round of qualifying and ran a 4.42 @ 160 in the opening round of the Quick-8. May 20, 2006: DalePittman.com is refreshed and relaunched. Welcome, I hope you enjoy the new look. May 5, 2006: We won the first Quick-8 Rossler Transmissions Door Wars at Quaker City Dragway in Salem, OH. We won with a 4.408 @ 157.89 in the 1/8th mile shoot-out. April 29, 2006: Work is finished on the new Shop Project Car. Make sure you check out the pictures. Thanks to the hard working crew that helped us put it together as well as all of our sponsors. . ©2007 Pittman Enterprises, Inc. Site Designed by