Vaughn Gittin Jr.
After not being able to run in the Top 16 in New Jersey, thanks to the failing of a $3 part, the sole D1GP winner and his Mustang are in Vegas looking to "gitterdun."
Round 4 was an amazing event. The crowd was huge and the course was insanely dangerous and fast-just how I love it! The weekend can be summed up by a few clichs for me and the Falken Tire Ford Mustang: "When it rains it pours," or better yet, "If it wasn't for bad luck, we would have no luck at all."
After our minor issue in Jersey, the Ford Mustang went back to ASD where my crew fixed the freak power-steering problem and prepped the car for battle in Vegas. As the car was being loaded onto the Falken Tire rig, it started to backfire and sputter out of the ITBs. I am going to make this long story real short: The head was trashed. After three days of tireless work by my incredibly dedicated team and partners, the car showed up to the track on Saturday with 25 minutes left in practice. I got two runs in, and then went straight to qualifying, so I had no choice but to go for it. I had studied my competitors all weekend and picked Forsberg's brain enough that I felt I had run the course a hundred times. I jumped in the Mustang directly off the trailer and tossed into the first turn without hesitation and laid down a pretty solid run. I threw it in a bit in the second run and nailed it! Although I only had only pulled off two passes, I was confident I would qualify no problem. Some evil forces had other plans for my weekend however. On the exit of the course, the car started running real rough, so I shut it down. The Falken Tire/ASD crew rushed to get the car back to the pit to try and get us to qualify, but unfortunately we had to toss in the towel due to an unexplained timing-chain failure that resulted in bent valves.
We are pretty much officially out of the championship points chase for a Top 3 finish. However, due to the way the event worked out with so many non-seeded drivers making Top 16, I am still in 8th Place. We are going back to the drawing board and are discussing going with a more traditional Ford Racing crate engine as "reinventing of the wheel" with these insanely built naturally aspirated engines is not holding up to my right foot. Although we are having this ridiculous streak of stupid bad luck, my head is still up and I have full confidence that my extremely dedicated team and I will pull through this. I am all for being the "spoiler" for the series points leaders!
Falken Tire
www.falkentire.com
K&N Filters
www.knfilters.com
Ford Racing
www.fordracing.com