All the pictures are moved to the Gallery

After a disappointing Saturday the verdict was  not qualified! The hole team worked as hard as possible to get in to the show. Lex Also pushed the car too it’s limits and this resulted in a pretty big engine explosion. Luckily no parts where flying around and even the big flames that entered the cockpit didn’t hurt Lex.

Monday we packed everything in too another trailer in which the equipment will stay till we have a shop in the US where the car can stay. The plan is to run the car in  US as well.

A lot of people are busy with getting the appropriate funding to start a US program in 2010.

For now the American adventure has come to an end and I must say I learned a lot. I hope I can continue this way of working with an excellent crew chief like Kevin Poynter next season.

Tuesday I’m heading back to The Netherlands to finish my Project at CPM before I will leave to Mexico the 14^th of December.

We are getting close but after 2 qualifying runs there is still a long way to go tomorrow.

Let’s see if we can make it to Sunday race day.

After a week off preparations we are in Pomona to start our second race in the states.
Before we went to the track we had a lovely real American steak dinner at the house of our crew chief/tuner Kevin Poynter and his wife Terry who is an excellent cook. We really felt at home and we had a good night.

We are even better prepared then last time and everybody is doing everything that he can do to make this car qualify for the Sunday race.

Besides working every day on the dragster me and my buddy’s here Arjan and Patrick we had 2 days off.
We went to visit a nice theme park and we did a brief visit to Hollywood.

Today we finished setting up the pits and we finished some details on the dragster. The guys made some nice pictures form the roof of the truck. Racing trucks are a bit bigger here then in Europe. Tomorrow we will start our first qualifying. I will try to give u an update tomorrow night.

Monday 26 October – Packing

Today we packed the truck for the race. There was still a lot of stuff that had no addressed space in the trailer and it looked a lot like Tetris to get everything in.  Tomorrow morning we will put the dragster inside and then we will head for Las Vegas.

Tuesday 27 October – Viva Las Vegas

After a 4.5-hour drive we arrived in Las Vegas.  It was nice to see Las Vegas by night with all the pretty lights and exclusive buildings. Tomorrow morning we will go the track to start building up the pits.

Thursday 28 October – America vs. Europe

After building up the pits Wednesday everybody worked on getting the dragster for the first qualifying run on Friday. So more long days but seeing the entire top teams at the paddock makes me realize that we have to compete with the best in the world. Paddocks in America are way bigger then in Europe. At Tachyon Motorsport we usually have some difficulties getting our American style truck in and out but here there is plenty off space to turn in your location. The other difference is that every team brings his own generator. Which is normally on the back of the truck and will use diesel from the truck tanks. There is no power supply at the track.

Friday 28 October – D-day

Our first qualifying run was a special moment when u are waiting in the stage lanes with 24 other top fuel dragster who all want to qualify top 16. Then u see the big arc which says “the strip” makes u realize that u are now on a real USA style drag strip. Our first run went reasonable but the blower belt came off during the run, which resulted in a slow run. Then we had to do the first service. In the USA they are strict with the time u have for a service but due to oil downs on the track we had to run much later and we where ready in time. Because the run was later that day it was already dark which always gives a nice show with the top fuel cars. We did a nice run width a time of 3.93. This is a personal best for Lex and the team.

This time was good for the 13^th position after 2 runs. The qualifying system here in the US is a bit different form the one in Europe.  The first 12 after 2 runs keep their time for the Saturday qualifying the other drivers loose their time and have to battle for qualifying top 16 again. This mend that our time was just a few hundreds of a second to slow.

Saturday 29 October – Ups and Downs

Today we drove 2 qualifying runs and in both runs the blower belt came off. We didn’t had a A to B run to qualify and the entire team was very disappointed.  Luckily we won the price for best appearing crew. Monday we will go back to LA to prepare the dragster for the next race.

Friday 26:15

This day kept going on when u are traveling form Amsterdam,chigago to Los Angeles. Every time u are crossing more time zones and your day will be longer and longer. The flight was oke and I could just get the second flight in time due to all the American immigrations. One thing is for sure they want to know why u are here.  Arjan one off my team mates picked me up at the airport together with Kevin Pointer. He is our tuner and crew chief here in the states and brought me and Patrick which also arrived today to our lovely hotel.

Saturday 22:30

Seeing the car in good order in the shop was a nice point to start from. Kevin and Arjan made a good start and did a lot with just a two of them. Cleaning was the main job this day. Kevin wanted to clean all the tools before we start on the rest of the dragster. I think that is a good way to start because now everybody can find all his tools in a second. Kevin is a pro here in drag racing and with everything he explains u will get more educated about  it.

After a fast food lunch at McDonalds the cleaning part was over and we could start on some serious mechanics. Arjan and Patrick start working on the spare engines and Kevin and me started on the cylinder heads. George our clutch guy already arrived in the morning and had a full-time job preparing the clutch for the first race in Vegas. Kevin plans on winning so we have to make sure all the parts can handle this kind of power. This means that I’m rebuilding almost every single cylinder head. If this is what it takes to win I’m doing what ever he asks to prove him right. At 21:00 o’clock we stopped after we started from 7:00 our brains  and body’s could use some rest.

I will try to upload some pictures soon.

Some friends/family already know that I will be part of the Lex Joon Racing American Dream Tour.

I will be leaving to Los Angeles, USA this Friday for 3,5 weeks.

The first race will be in Las Vegas, Nevada 29 October till 1 November.
The second race will be in Pomona, California (close to Los Angeles) 12 till 15 November.

Due to multiple reasons I will post these messages behind a password.

Thursday
Tomorrow morning the event starts here in Hockenheim. It is a bit weird standing with the trailer on pole position ride on the grid. The track is all prepared for tomorrow and the car is almost ready to go. It is late again. Lets see how Q1 and Q2 will go tomorrow.

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After the qualifying sessions we made it till the semi-final which we had to run against Andy Carter. Unfortunately we couldn’t beat him.

We serviced the car for the last time and we packed the truck to go home.

We slept another short night and we left home. The first 2 hours we had multiple driver changes because everybody was still pretty tired. After the ferry everybody was more awake. But I was pretty much sleeping all the way.

Next weekend I will be going to support my sisters boyfriend at the Europokaal autocross in Loenen.

Today we did 2 qualifying runs. This was the first for me to experience top fuel dragster closely. I had seen them on TV but u can’t compare anything with this. 

During the warm-up the night before on methanol the car was running and I thought it was pretty loud but it was not much more then the big block McLaren I’m used to at tachyon. 

Today I got to see a engine running on nitro for the first time. They start up the engine with methanol and then they switch to nitro. Immediately u hear the engine making bigger bangs and u see the nitro coming out of the exhaust because nitro cars run really rich on fuel for multiple reasons. 

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