The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly!

The DMC Racing gang made the trek to Cecil County Dragway this past weekend with a couple of cars for the 2nd Annual Yellowbullet.com Nationals, put on by track owner Jim Halsey and Monty Mikho of the infamous Yellowbullet internet forum. DMC Racing Team Members Alex Vrettos and Paul Major were on the property to compete in the Outlaw Drag Radial class, while DMC’s own Eric LaFerriere brought out DMC’s ‘shop car’ for the first time this season to run in the x275 class.

It was a long weekend of racing, but Team CoRuPt made the best of it by dominating in the Outlaw Drag Radial field. There were 25 cars on the premises for a sixteen-car field, and from the moment Alex took the car out of the trailer he was one of the fastest in the field. His car was just here at the DMC shop in Halifax, Massachusetts, for some midseason repairs after it was damaged last time out. Alex went on to dominate the event, as his awesome weekend culminated in a win over Stevie "Fast" Jackson, one of the toughest competitors around. Alex saved his best pass of the weekend for the final round of competition, where he put Jackson on the trailer with a stout 4.49 at 176 mph to Jackson's 4.53 at 163 mph. Great showing for Team CoRuPt!

Alex making a hit during Sunday's elimination rounds. Thanks to Dragzine.com and Rob Cossack for the photos.

The Ugly

Paul Major showed up to the YB Nats with a race-ready car for Outlaw Drag Radial. Paul has been doing a lot of testing lately, and he and crew chief Robby Smith showed everyone early what they were capable of by unleashing an unreal 4.41 at over 183 MPH to lead the entire field into eliminations.

Now for the ugly - Paul got loose during the early qualifying round on Saturday, forcing the entire DMC Racing team along with Paul's crew to pitch in and get him fixed up for competition.

Crew chief Robby hunted down the crushed pieces of nose that had been discarded by the track staff during the cleanup process, and the gang rustled up some 200-mph tape to aid in the repair process. A couple of pieces of aluminum, lots of rivets, and an expert tape job had Paul ready for eliminations. As the top qualifier, Paul had a first-round bye, assuring him of a second-round slot against Vinny Fiore. Unfortunately, in that matchup, Paul lost traction after the launch and had to get out of it, ending his weekend. The damage is 99% cosmetic, and Paul vowed to be ready for the next big event, the ShakeDown at E-Town.

Now For The Bad – Not Really!

You may remember this car from when Eric LaFerriere used to campaign it in the NMRA's Drag Radial class. It is currently outfitted for x275 action and features a 331-cubic-inch engine from Kuntz and Co. that is force-fed by a ProCharger F-1R supercharger, a perfect combination for x275 action. The DMC Racing team has been working hard all summer to revamp the car, but the decision was made to attend this race the night before the event. As the car had not been out on the track yet this year, it was still somewhat of an unknown quantity, but we were hoping that Eric's driving talent coupled with the rest of the team's skill would take him far in eliminations. With no testing time, Eric managed to qualify 28th of 32 cars while still sorting out the brand-new-car bugs.

The car responded to the changes we were making, but without a handful of camshafts in the trailer and more time, we were forced to deal with the performance the car was offering. Eric went to the tree in the first round to give it his best shot, but it just wasn't meant to be. Although Eric had the starting line advantage, Peter Harrell came around him for the win on the big end.

And….the New!

Florida's Mel Nelson sought out the advice of DMC's own Dennis MacPherson for assistance in getting his Outlaw Drag Radial Camaro down the track. Dennis inspected the car, thought about it for a while, and recommended a number of changes to Mel and his team. Mel's team has been struggling to get the torque-arm-equipped machine down the track consistently, but after the recommended changes were made, Mel was able to get the big-block-equipped Camaro down the track cleanly with no issues whatsoever. He will be bringing the car to DMC Racing later on this season for a number of changes and upgrades, and we are proud and happy to welcome him to the DMC Racing team!

We have to thank Monty Mikho, Jim Halsey, the Cecil County Dragway staff, and all of the people who helped to put on such a great event.  We were proud to have our name associated with such a great group of people as a sponsor, and we look forward to participating in the event in the future.  Thanks again guys! All in all, it was a great weekend for the DMC Racing team!

A tough weekend at Milan Dragway for the DMC team…

thanks to Heather Rothgeb for the great photo!

 

In the weeks leading up to the NMRA‘s 8th Annual Ford Nationals, Andrew DeMarco had been testing to iron out some of the bugs in his still-relatively-new combination.  Dennis put a chassis tune-up into the car, and Andrew and the team headed out to New England Dragway just a week prior to this event, where the results were promising.

The team loaded up and hit the road, arriving in Michigan at Milan Dragway with plenty of time to spare.  Once unloaded, ‘Little Evil’ proceeded to scorch the clocks with a qualifying time of 7.269 at over 202 MPH, landing him second on the qualifying ladder behind perennial champ John Urist’s 7.21/198MPH hit. In the second round of qualifying, the transmission failed after the shift into high gear, keeping the team up until 2AM Friday night making repairs.  The third qualifier proved to be the most interesting of the three sessions, with a parachute malfunction coming at the end of the run.  “When I pulled the chutes, only one came out, and Milan isn’t the longest shutdown area, so I eased into the brakes, and the ass-end just got light.  The other chute came out and went inside the second one, and there was probably 500-600 feet of black marks and bouncing back and forth. I did everything I could just to keep the car off the wall,” said DeMarco.  With lots of nasty weather on hand through the first three qualifying sessions, the original plan of running eliminations on Saturday evening didn’t work out. The race was originally scheduled to be a Friday-Saturday event, so DeMarco had to head home Saturday evening racing action was held over until Sunday, as he had pressing personal business to handle on Monday morning and could not stay over to race.

There is a large local race coming up at New England Dragway on August 13-14, so the team plans to make some test hits in preparation for the next NMRA event at National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio, over Labor Day Weekend.

DMC Racing is now a dealer for ATFSpeed products!

Check out their new gear-drive system, available for F-1 thru F-3 ProCharger superchargers.  Please contact us for details!

Back from Route 66!

The DMC Racing team is back from the NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing in Joliet, IL.  Team member Andrew DeMarco went to the semifinals in the Atco rain-date makeup event before losing to six-time class champ John Urist.  Andrew then drove his way to the semifinals again in the Joliet portion of the race before another tough loss to Urist.  Promising numbers from his car, we have a few things to sort out before the next race.  Team member Dave DeMarco qualified third with a strong 6.77/221 mph blast, then lost on a tough -.007 redlight to eventual runner-up Brian Hicks. The DMC crew will be ready for the next event in each series!

Andrew DeMarco's car in the process of a 5.0 Mustang and Super Fords Magazine Photoshoot!

Welcome to our blog!

As you can see, this blog is a new thing for us.  As time goes by, we will update it with racing results, cool stuff going on in the shop, and anything else we think you might find useful as a racing fan and participant.  Thanks for checking us out!