What a weekend it was in Orlando for Team Bumblebee! Finally found the winner’s circle for the first time ever at a Radial Vs. the World event! But the story of getting there is wild.
Right off the bat, we’ve been working behind the scenes with Ken Perry and his company; Ken Perry’s Xtreme Arias (KPXA)since PRI last year.
Ken designed and manufactured his own version of the Hemi engine completely in-house and graciously gave us the opportunity to be the first door car on the planet to test the combination. But “test” is a loose term here 😂 the engine arrived on Tuesday night, fired for the first time on Wednesday, and went straight to the track for two 330’ hits, then headed straight for Orlando.
Q1 started off with posting a 3.91, and then quickly a 3.74 for q2. Unfortunately, a bolt backed out of a throttle blade on that run, and found its way through they blower causing a backfire at around 3 seconds into the run, and some damage to the blower. The motor though? SOLID! No damage at all. So now, an absolutely massive thank you goes to both Bill Lutz and Cheyenne Blackburn who each drove around 18 hours total to get Bill’s blower back to the race track in time to bolt back on for Saturday afternoon, even though we missed the last qualifier due to rain.
On Sunday morning, we would match up with Norman Bryson for first round. Which is a feat in itself for Norman and crew to have turned that car around after literally flying through the air and landing on its lid just a couple days prior. Those guys did an incredible job getting that thing to go 3.78 next to our 3.79, although BEE was able to get through on a holeshot!
@bumblebeeracing
