The Bob Drapp Rap

5/4/2009

The first race of the season was the Event at Gateway International raceway in St. Louis, Mo, April 18-19, 2009. In Super Gas I qualified #3, in Super Sport #2, and in E.T. I was in the #10 spot, only to be rained out before eliminations started Sunday.

The real interesting story was with teammate Jimmy McMillan in the Hot Street class. He qualified #2 with a brand new Buell that had never been run before, and in the Friday practice session he had run 9.95 seconds at 134 MPH, which was only .4 seconds and 1 MPH away from the national record for Hot Street. With some fine tuning, we are looking for this one to be a serious contender for a national championship this season.

Fast forwarding to the next weekend found us at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga. (April 25-26, 2009). I qualified #2 in Super Gas, #17 in Super Sport, and again #10 in E.T. Unfortunately I lost 3rd gear in the transmission in the 2nd round, but was able to survive until losing in third round of Super Gas and Super Sport. E.T. was a different story, because I was able to dial a slower E.T. I made it to the final round.

Jimmy again qualified #2 in the Hot Street class, but lost in the semi final round. The really great thing was that Jimmy also made it to the final round of E.T. for an all MMI E.T. final round with Jimmy getting the win.