Thursday, February 4, 2010

Duck Tape Racing Flies South for Florida Victory


Palm Beach, Fla. - For the second time, Team Duck Tape Racing's Michael Beard captured the season-opening IHRA Stock Eliminator title in Florida. In 2008, it was the IHRA Div. 2 Pro-Am event in Immokalee, Fla., but this time the Duck had even bigger fish to fry: the inaugural IHRA Palm Beach Nitro Jam, at Palm Beach International Raceway.

Beard strategically qualified 10th in the Stock Eliminator field, which set up his rack of opponents on the ladder. Beard set the tone with a perfect .000 reaction time in the second round, and made his way to an important bye run in the semifinals. In the finals, he defeated rookie hot shoe J.J. Carnero with an .010 to .029 reaction time advantage, and taking the finish line by just .004 seconds.

The national event is a qualifying race for IHRA's Tournament of Champions, so Beard became the first Stock driver to earn a berth in this year's $10,000-to-win IHRA World Championship tournament, which will take place at the IHRA World Finals at Virginia Motorsports Park in October. Beard is also qualified for the postponed 2009 Tournament of Champions, which will finally be run off on April 30 at Rockingham Dragway.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, however, as an errant tool on the highway literally threw a wrench into the works. Amazingly, a 7/16" Craftsman wrench laying on the road punctured the right-rear tire on Beard's truck, but at least the unlikely occurrence was a delay and nothing more.



This coming weekend, Feb. 6-7, Beard returns to Florida's Immokalee Regional Raceway for a double-header, featuring an IHRA Div. 2 Pro-Am and a Sportsman National event.

All Sportsman category finals are slated to be part of IHRA Nitro Jam television coverage on SPEED Channel. The broadcast date(s) will be passed along as soon as they are available.

DragRaceCentral Reporting:
Team supporters include Duck Tape brand duct tape, CAM2 Blue Blood Racing Oil, Mickey Thompson Tires, K&N Filters, Bradley Auto Parts, Bearden Oil - Sunoco, Finished, Macy Motorsports, Sloan Racing Engines, Billy Nees Race Cars, Stephen Beard, Matt Zapp, Terry Knott, and Jill Beard.

No comments:

Post a Comment