Haltech World Cup Finals is in the books.....What a week for the Vette!
Well World Cup Finals 2023 is in the books and it was a WILD week for Ryan, Aaron, Jake, and Chappy (As well as the others who helped work on the car throughout the week).
The week started off great day 1 of qualifying and Ryan went a 7.22 at 206 which left him sitting 3rd after the day was over.....Unfortunately from there some mechanical issues came up which they fought through as you will read below.
In Q2 a rod failed in cylinder #2.....For alot of crews/racers that would be the end of the week and the car would be going into the trailer, but not for these guys.....as soon as the car got pushed back to the pits there was no doubt they were going to swap to the spare engine.....They got right to pulling the hurt one out and putting the spare in.....problem with the spare was it was not exactly identical so some things needed to be changed/modified to get it back in the car and running.....but that wasn't going to stop that team and a few other hands chipped in from some other racers/crews as well and they were able to get it together and running for Q4.
By the time they took the lanes for Q4 the 7.22 from Q1 put them at 11th place; The Q4 was more a shakedown with the new engine to see if everything would be working properly and Ryan made a good clean pass so the guys from CPR could give the clean bill of health for Q5.
On the Q5 pass Ryan felt the car was a little off with the clutch so the pass was aborted to not hurt anything and get it ready for E1 on Sunday. After Q5 the guys wanted to make a few more clutch changes so they pulled an all nighter and pulled the trans and clutch back out to make them; These guys always want everything to be 100% so it was a no brainer to make sure it was good and by Sunday the car was ready to start the eliminations.
The guys ended up officially qualifying 12th by the time all 5 rounds were complete....They went into the E1 against the rotary powered RX7 of L Ortiz. In E1 Ryan left hard and the car wheelied as the power came in and car made a quick move right when it came down...Ryan was able to gather it up along with the awesome power management and he went on to get the win light with a 7.62 at 201mph.
The guys pulled the data and started making adjustments for E2 which was against Grannas and his badass Supra that qualified 3rd with a 6.907 at 210.14 so they had their hands full. Grannas got out early as Ryan fought the car from making a move left and brought it back into the groove, but he didn't give up and stayed in it and kept rowing gears....Grannas had an issue mid track and Ryan was able to get around him and get another win light with a 7.45 at 206mph to Grannas' 7.80 at 153mph.
As soon as the guys got the car back to the pits and analyzed the data they made more adjustments....for E3 they drew Jon Rogers and his 2JZ 240SX that had qualified 6th with a 7.089 at 195.99; He had been pretty consistent all event so they knew it was gonna be a battle....Both cars left together and Rogers got a slight lead to the 330', but from there on out Ryan was banging gears and got around him to get another win light and ran his best time of the weekend and best time for the car to date with a 7.00 at 206mph to Roger's 7.21 at 196.59. They had fought their way all the way to the semifinals against all odds!!!
In the semis they were paired against Josh Tonski and his wicked Foxbody which qualified 8th with a 7.15 at 196.56 so again they were facing another very fast car that had qualified above them....the 3rd one so far in elims. Once again the wizards (Jake and Chappy for those of you that don't know them) dialed in a tune up they thought would get it done and they took the lanes next to Tonski.....when the light dropped Ryan and Tonski left side by side and Tonski kicked the tire about 300' out which turned him towards the wall and Ryan rolled away for another win light with a 7.05....after he crossed the finish line he pulled the chute like he normally does and this time it did not come out fully so he was forced to slow the car down using the brakes only from 208mph and they were GLOWING (pictured below)....Luckily they had just swapped over to the new TBM's front and rear a few days before they left for WCF so it was able to scrub the speed off and make the turn around safely. Now they were now FINALS BOUND!
For the finals they were matched up with Cleetus in Leroy the Savage.....what a matchup for the trophy and prize money! Unfortunately since it was already 11pm they didn't have the normal cool down time between rounds so they had to hustle a little more than usual to do the normal turn around work as well as figure out what happened with the parachute....As usual the crew busted their ass and got the car ready and into the lanes just in time with a tune up loaded that was gonna get down!
They took the line and Jake was going bananas with his Haltech fingers on behind the car as they staged.....when the lights dropped both guys left HARD and it was a drag race....they both hit the 1-2 and 2-3 shift great and Ryan was about to start rolling out the back....Unfortunately tragedy struck on the 3-4 shift for Ryan and the car shut down at 3.7 seconds and coasted to a 7.56 at 149.68mph .....Cleetus kept rowing to a 7.32 at 203.95mph and took the win light to take the title of Stick Shift Class Champion for WCF 2023.
Of course we want to see the car win every event it is in, but that isn't always in the cards and any time you go rounds against competition like this it is a great event! It was so great to see all of the shares, support, and encouragement from people all over the country and back home....There is no reason to hang their heads with that performance and the effort from those guys was second to none. They are going to get the car back home and start prepping it to come back stronger than ever for Tx2k24.
For more details on the car itself and some of the parts on it click HERE
