Curtis is half boxer, half pit.

 

Pits are the best!

 

the sun was hitting things just right today whilst washing the car, so I snapped a few pics up close with my phone.

 

Here are a few pictures from our recent tour of Italy we drove from Germany to Milan, Rome, Vatican, Pisa, Florence, Verona and then back home to Germany. Was just shy of 3000 Kilometers of driving. Wonderful trip!

 

Wow! That looks incredible!

 

[QUOTE=SSStang;6793043]Here are a few pictures from our recent tour of Italy we drove from Germany to Milan, Rome, Vatican, Pisa, Florence, Verona and then back home to Germany. Was just shy of 3000 Kilometers of driving. Wonderful trip!

Very Nice

 

 

What section of the trip was the most fun to drive? I have considered a guided Ducati tour of portions of Europe near and around Italy.

 

Italy is a photographer's dream. We went back in '03 and loved it. Also visited Florence, and there are no words to describe Il Duomo, or Santa Maria del Fiore. You truly have to see it for yourself.

 

Got to see the (movie) Memphis Belle B-17 today. It. Was. Awesome.

 

From the air show today.

 

Awesome. Good to see them back in the air!

 

Nice! Love the Blue Angles

I'd really like to check out the B-17 and some of those old warbirds, but I don't know that I could fit in them enough to look around at all.

 

I didn't get to take near as many pictures as I would like to have due to circumstances that I'm not going to talk about on here, but here is from the NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston. Sorry Mustang Guys

 

What seems to be the problem with Chris? He's not having great luck considering the kind of equipment they ended up with from Mike and what that team did with it. Is it just because of being a new team and trying to get everyone to gel as a group?

I really hated to see Mike drop out of the game like that, I was actually floored when I heard about it. He was hands down one of my favorite people in the whole series. Seemed like such a truly genuine guy, humble and seemed to be so grateful and thankful for everything that came his way.

 

I didn't take this, pretty Awesome!

 

We'll start of by saying that this is just my opinion and not affiliated with the Race Team in any way what so ever.

Is it just because of being a new team and trying to get everyone to gel as a group?

We will go with that, and in my opinion, there have just been issues with setup on the car, and in the consistency of the setup. There have also been issues that come up on the engine side of things(you have to realize his engine guys were out and bought out by the Grays, probably also led to his leaving the sport), so upkeep and the like, as well as other small ****. The car will obviously run, as evidenced by the two number one qualifiers this year. Pomona and Gainesville can be thrown out, as they were a cluster****(from what I've been told), and there were engine issues there. He qual'd #1 in Phoenix, but then lost out on the first round(couldn't really see it on TV, but he got rushed on the line fairly bad by Tucker, who was already staged, and got psyched out. He also did fairly well in Vegas including his first Semi Appearance this year and #2 qualifier, but then lost on a double red light(he just redlit a bit more then Enders, who also left early) but still ran the fastest past of the weekend on the semis. Charlotte is it's own problem, because he was fastest out almost every round, was cutting great lights, but a missed setup on the car took him out on tire shake in the semis when he had a good chance of winning the whole race. This last weekend was it's own set of problems, but when you run #3 speed and qualify #10, there is an obvious problem there.

I'm not going to out and say what the problem is, especially on the internet, but if you look into it, it is plain as day.

I will say that Chris is a lot smarter in both Engine Building and Crew Chiefing than people give him credit for(he's not just another driver who shows up to just drive), but people often ignore what he has to say. When he has been given a good car, he has driven it extremely well. His whole family is extremely passionate about it, and work their *** off to finance the whole racing operation, and are great people. Just be patient, I know the operation will come to fruition, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Look how long it took Erica to win her first Prostock race.

I've never met Mike, but talking to Big Al, he is always like that. Seems like a great guy. It sucks people assume that Chris simply bought him out leading to him quitting racing, but Mike actually called Chris, and Chris tried everything he could just to stay with it.

 

Obviously you know much more about the class than I do, I actually haven't even been following it as closely as I used to. But I just got the impression that maybe they are a group of people that are all extremely talented (and obviously have top notch equipment) but that they all individually "know" that they are talented and are unwilling to accept input from the people around them which keeps them from working together as a team. As the old saying goes, there is no I in team.

 

The team as it stands right now is Chris, his dad Lester, Steve(Clutch Guy and longtime friend of Chris), Al(services motors at the track), Jim Yates(Crew Chief), Randy(truck driver and works the back half of the car between rounds), and one guy back at the shop who builds engines(used to work for Nickens).

Chris can Crew Chief, but right now just sits back and Yates calls the shots on the car setup. We have Mikes log book of every run he's made in the car(or as it is jokingly called, "The Instruction Manual"), but the car for some reason isn't always setup similarly. Draw from that what you will.

 

Sounds like a crew chief problem to me then.