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Tran Dominates NHRA Sport Compact Las Vegas Garland Texas 07-27-2003 After a frantic week of last-minute set-backs and a marathon forty-eight hour wrenching session in the Jotech workshop prior to making a cross-country dash to Las Vegas, Kenny Tran's Quaker State® Honda Civic took it's first victory of the 2003 season. In addition to taking home a "Wally" for the event win Tran's Quaker State crew also got a pat on the back in the form of the Mequires "Best Appearing" award for their efforts.

Kenny Tran was ecstatic with the results and is looking forward to challenging for the championship in the second-half of the NHRA sport compact season. "This was exactly what we needed." Tran said. "The championship leader, Marty Ladwig was eliminated in the first round and we beat the second placed driver, Mike Crawford in the semi-final. This has tightened up the top of the championship points race and puts the Quaker State® team close enough to challenge for the lead over the next couple of events."

"I am thrilled with the performance of the Quaker State team. We had to battle for every win in Vegas. None of our races were easy, we needed to beat some of the toughest competitors in our class and the guy's came through when we needed it most."

A completely new Precision turbocharger and intercooler combination meant that the hard-working Quaker State® crew had to put in many extra hours in the run-up to the Vegas event.
"This was a sweet win considering the effort we had to put in." said crew chief Tony Palo. "We knew that the changes would help us a lot but we had very little time to set the new combination up. In the end we did as much as we could before we had to load the car on the trailer and we planned on refining the tune-up during the qualifying sessions. With only two qualifying runs we managed to get it pretty close but we knew that we still had some more power to come so we managed to get the car on the Quaker State Dynojet dyno for a couple of runs and that was all we needed,"

The tuner of the Quaker State® Civic, Bob Norwood, had his work cut-out but came through after finding an extra two-hundred horsepower on the Quaker State dyno.
"We had a glitch in the boost control software and we could never have figured it out without the use of the dyno. After qualifying we knew we had a tough first-round race against veteran Myles Bautista and that two-hundred horsepower we found on the dyno made all the difference. From that point it was just a matter of refining the tune-up from round-to-round."

The second-round race against 2003 event winner Gary Gardella was a real test for the team. Norwood's tuning strategy paid-off as the Quaker State® Civic blasted to an 8.823 @ 164.43 mph to take the win.
"That was a very hard race." Tran said after the race. "Gary is really tough and I knew I had to be at my best to beat him. I got a great reaction time and never looked back."

The semi-final round saw the Quaker State® Civic lining up against the hard charging Mopar Neon of Mike Crawford. With Crawford in second place in the championship just ahead of Kenny Tran this was a crucial race for Tran's championship hopes.
This was to be the best race of the event. Tran cut a killer .508 reaction time to get the early advantage leaving Crawford with the task of running down the Quaker State® Civic down track. As the cars crossed the finish line Tran's reaction time proved to be the winning factor as both competitors recorded exactly the same elapsed times with matching 8.906 passes.

"That was huge for us." Tran said. "Mike is just ahead of us in the championship and we had to beat him. Bob Norwood did a great job on the tune-up and I am happy with my reaction time, at the end of the day that combination has put us in the final with a real chance of winning the event."

The final however, would not be an easy one. Lance Holung had already posted the fastest time of the event with an 8.576 and was looking for his first NHRA win.
Once again Tran's reaction time would prove to be the winning factor. A .428 against Holung's .611 put the Quaker State® Civic out to an early lead and from that point on it was all Tran. Kenny's time of 8.650 @ 166.29 mph was his fastest of the day and was enough for the Quaker State® team to take the event win.

"I am so thrilled to get the first win for Quaker State®" Tran said in the winners circle. "My team did an awesome job against the odds and at the end of the day this is a victory for everybody involved in our race program. I have to thank my crew for all of the hard work and of course, Quaker State® for their support. Also a special thank you has to go out to Paul Michaels of Raceworks for his huge efforts on our behalf."

The win in Vegas couldn't have come at a better time to the Quaker State team. The next event is in Dallas and as a home race support will be huge for the team.
"I can't wait for the Dallas race. It's our home event and I won it in 2002. Kenny said. "It would be great to win it again and I really believe we can do it. We have got a strong team and a great car. It's going to be up to our rivals to take it away from us and we are not going to be easy to beat on home turf."

Contacts:

Jotech Motorsports www.jotechracing.com
Quaker State www.quakerstate.com
RaceWorks LLC www.raceworks.net
Bob Norwood www.bobnorwood.com