New Season New car

Well, its been a while since my last post. Let me bring you up to speed. Over the winter, we had Horton Race cars/Hartman Machine Works build us a brand new Funnycar chassis. The craftmanship J.Ed and Richard done is second to none. Attention to detail is unbelievable. The Dodge Stratus body is all white. Never had a white car before, but I like it. We had no test time with the new car and we did not even start the car until last weekend at the Southern Nationals in GA. I left work early wed. to get there and finish some last minute details. The car passed tech with flying colors and we were ready to go. We actually finished the total car friday around 11:00 am to make a run. We had planned on running the car 3-400 foot on the first pass to make sure everything was in working order. The crew triple checked every nut, bolt and fitting on the car, and we were feeling good. We had our team meeting and afterward, Me, daddy, and Richard talked about the first run. It was left up to me as to how far to take the run. We pulled the car to the scales to check weight right before the run, set the steering and pulled it to the staging lanes. I was the first Funnycar to run. They started the car, lowered the body and even though I have not drove in 6 months (Rockingham Oct. 08'), It came back very fast. First off, the dodge body is 100% different than the Camaro body we ran last year. This thing feels like something from outer space. The tin work and firewall inside the car is awesome. J.ed made me a new "dog house"(covers supercharger that lays on top on dash), so the visibility was good. I pulled through the water box and hit the throttle. Man, It felt SO GOOD!! Backed up, the crew lifted the body to perform their tasks and lowered the body. I put the fresh air valve on which supplys air to my helmet. I put my visor down and its time to go. My dad is at the beam of the starting line and he motions me forward. When it's ok to pull on forward, he gives me the thumbs up signal and I pull into the beam. The top light comes on. It's go time. Take a deep breath, pull the fuel lever to full "on", take my foot off the clutch pedal and roll into the second beam. I look for the yellow flash of the bulb and BAM! I hit the the throttle and run 4.40 at 279.mph! on the very first run of a brand new car. NHRA is not running the 1/4 mile this year, they only run 1,000 ft. We had a great weekend even though we did not qualify. We only the missed the bump time by 2 tenths of a second. We learned a great deal about the downforce of the new car, we will make the necessary changes before the next race in Bristol, TN may 15-17 and see what happens. Thanks to Serenity Limosuine in Atlanta Ga., General Machine of Anderson, Holbrook Performance parts, Hedman Hedders, Duncan's Transport, JRD Grading, R&R Construction, Karolina Coaches, Victory-1, Horton race cars, Hartman Machine, Ross Pistons, Darton sleeves, Vickery's speed shop, ISP, Ringers Gloves, Impact!, Discount trailer sales, my family, crew and friends for your support. We are still looking for sponsors, so if you know someone wanting to advertise, send them my way. We are looking for anything small to large. Until next time, Andy My new website is www.andykelleyracing.com