MATT HARTFORD MAKES
HISTORY WITH THRILLING
PERFORMANCE IN QUALIFYING
IN A MATTER of 6.460 seconds during the final
qualifying session at Orlando, Matt Hartford’s
2020 Pro Stock season took a major
step forward and gave him a spot in the Pro Stock
records books in the process.
Hartford and Aaron Stanfield thrilled the
crowd with a pair of 6.46s in the quickest sideby-side
run of the electronic fuel injection
(EFI) era in Pro Stock. But it was Hartford who
claimed the top spot in his Total Seal Camaro,
powering to an incredible 6.460 at 211.89 mph,
giving him the No. 1 qualifier, the quickest run in
the EFI era of Pro Stock – and the third-quickest
run ever in Pro Stock, behind only Jason Line’s
6.455 and Greg Anderson’s 6.457 with carburetors
in 2015.
“The neat thing about it is it’s the third-quickest
run in NHRA history out of a 500-inch car,”
Hartford said. “That means a lot to us. I knew it
was a good run. Sitting in the lanes, I could feel
the temperature drop. I came back and grabbed
the laptop, and made some changes before the
run just feeling how quick it was turning. I was
ecstatic. To put the Total Seal Camaro in the No.
1 position in qualifying, it’s a dream come true.”
It was a surreal final session to close out two
spectacular days of qualifying in Orlando, and
Hartford delivered the biggest run of all. He had
struggled during the opening day, but made a
swift improvement with a 6.482 at 212.39. He
added to that and though eliminations ended
far quicker than he had hoped, losing to KB Racing
teammate Jason Line in the opening round,
Hartford loved the vibe of the race.
“You’ve got the best of best out here, and there
was nobody backing down,” Hartford said.
– JOSH HACHAT DI
JUSTIN BOND LOWERS
PROCHARGER RECORD
WITH A NEW CAR and new engine combination,
Justin Bond set the new quarter-mile
elapsed-time record for centrifugal superchargers
when he recorded a 5.623-second,
253.14 mph pass on Saturday night at the World
Doorslammer Nationals. Bond’s pass also put him
in the No. 1 spot in the quickest NHRA-legal Pro
Mod field in history.
“I think the performance of the car has been
very good,” Bond said at the time. “I think the
time slips speak for that. The car responds to all
the changes, and we just have a really awesome
crew and a really awesome tuner.”
Orlando was only Bond’s fourth race in Pro
Mod competition. His ProCharger-boosted, Pro
Line-powered ’69 Camaro is one of several new
cars entering NHRA Pro Mod competition after
the centrifugal supercharger combination
was added to the 2020 rulebook. Bond’s 5.623
is quicker than the current NHRA Pro Mod E.T.
record, a 5.643 recorded by Stevie “Fast” Jackson
in 2019.
Bond and his Bahrain 1 Racing team, led by
tuner Brad Personett, quickly got acclimated with
the ProCharger combination. They threw down
a 5.626 at 254.90 in the third qualifying session
Saturday afternoon, then repeated with the 5.623
in the final session.
“We were expecting to go significantly slower,”
said Bond, who eased past Steve Matusek
in the first round with a 5.733 at 229.59. “I’d
never actually driven the car to the finish line
[before the 5.626], so we
didn’t know what it would
do. The air really affects
this combination a lot. Even
when I drove it before to 5
seconds, we were running
in 2,500 feet of air. We’ve
had this car out two times
before. It had 11 runs on it
before we unloaded it here
on Thursday. We just don’t
know what to expect and
we’re just finding our way.”
While the World
Doorslammer Nationals
wasn’t an NHRA-sanctioned
event, the technical
department is following the
NHRA rules. NHRA tech officials were also at the
event and confirmed Bond’s car was up to spec
when it made the pair of 5.62 passes.
“We hurt a valve on the first 5.62, so we had
to take a cylinder head off,” Bond said. “[NHRA
tech officials] were checking it, checked the bore
and the stroke and the valves. They’re currently
looking at our torque converter and they checked
the rear end, so they’re going through the car with
a fine-tooth comb.”
Bond dipped back into the 5.60s in the quarter-
and semifinals, using a 5.673 to beat Jose
Gonzalez in his newly ProCharged Q80 Racing
Camaro before losing on a holeshot to Todd Tutterow
with a 5.687 in the semis. – NATE VAN WAGNEN DI
May 2020
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