ABROARD
Australia’s Leonard Brothers have been busy in the States recently, taking on Firebird
Raceway, Salt Lake City’s RMR Raceway and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
For the Boise Nightfire Nationals at Firebird Raceway, it was all
about running nitro before Mathew and Warren converted the
NitroRat fuel altered back to alcohol for their Salt Lake City outing.
In Idaho, the brothers and their crew competed in the 6.0 Fuel
Altered Class, with Mathew driving the NitroRat Fuel Altered to a
best time of 6.118 seconds at 230 miles per hour to qualify third
fastest from a field of nine cars.
“For only our first full pass and fifth pass in total running
nitromethane, I was pretty happy with how the car performed,”
Mathew said.
Unfortunately for Mathew, the lower end of the engine suffered
some damage.
“I backed the motor down a good amount to get it down the track,
after inspecting the car after the 6.11s run we found that main caps
two, three and four had split down the outer section where the side
bolts come in,” Mathew explained.
“We could have run the engine again but with another event
coming up across the 23rd to 26th of August in Salt Lake City, I
decided it wasn’t worth causing more damage just to pad my ego
by running nitro! I’m not going to lie, running nitro is pretty bloody
awesome though!”
The team stripped the car and motor and had new main caps
installed within 48 hours. They then converted the combination
back over to Alcohol to run in the Competition Eliminator bracket
at the double divisional event at RMR Raceway.
“With us losing the track this year in Salt Lake City to make way
for more warehouses - because we always need more empty
warehouses - I wanted to make sure we were there for the track
and to have a great send off for all the people that have supported
me over the years while putting on a good show for the crowd,”
Mathew said.
“The double divisional event at Rocky Mountain Raceway is always
a great one to race at. Being our ‘home track’ and the last year of
the facility as its being bulldozed, it was high on our list to try and
take the Wally.