Tommy Godfrey – F/S 1 – Superbowl ’09

Going into this race I was still unsure if I had fixed my major gremlins from the past Michigan race. After a month of changing parts and rewiring my car (while making 5 trips to the track to find it), I finally got it fixed. So I was definitely excited about this race!

We arrived at 8:30am on Friday morning, only to be pitted a MILE from the staging lanes. Definitely the worst pit spots ever. Can’t the NMRA at least save the pavement for Heads Up cars? We do have a lot more maintenance than bracket cars, open comps, trucks, and super stangs. In other words, I used my Dually as my tow vehicle. After making a clean test pass I was ready for qualifying, and the air was good and cool. When I dropped the clutch I knew it was GAME ON!

I dead hooked and rolled to an 11.109 @ 120.43mph, which was .007 from my record setting pass in Atco. I was very happy with results after my month of hard work, additionally putting me nicely in the number one spot. Due to the combined race, there was a lot of waiting. We waited around until they decided not to run second round of qualifying and went to the Steak & Shake.

Saturday rolled around and another great day with great weather. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait too long to make our last qualifier. It turns out all my efforts trying to fix my bucket were not going to waste, as on this run my car hooked again with no issues and ran an 11.121 @ 120.35mph. I had a bracket car, which is always good in Factory Stock because our competitors are no slouches. Now with the Superbowl event and the excessive amount of race cars, we have to run first round on Saturday night. We waited around for what seemed like an eternity to race.

The evening came and we were ready to race. I drew number sixth qualifier Jim St.Charles, which their 2v program has come around full circle since Milan. He was just coming off a runner finish and he was gunning for me. We lined up and got the starting line advantage. I think he was napping, but I would take it, running a 11.141 @ 120.50mph. Jim was right behind me with an 11.205 @ 120.54mph. That’s why I won’t take any one of my competitors for granted.

Sunday morning in Joliet, ah. Time for me to make my stupid mistake of the weekend. I never latch my dzus’s on my hood when I loaded my car in the trailer on Saturday night, so when I drove to the scales on Sunday morning I got to watch my very expensive carbon fiber hood fly about 30 or 40 feet into the air. I just had the hood fixed and completely repainted after it blew off the roof of the car in Atco down at fuel check. This time it’s worse though – it’s going to stay that way now. I wasn’t going to let it screw my weekend up though.

When we finally got called for 2nd round I knew I had my guy covered — ” BYE ” – I was going to kick his butt for sure. Like I was saying, I had a bracket car and proceeded to run my 2nd 11.109 @ 120+mph for the weekend and secured lane choice for the semi’s against John Leslie. Johnny’s always deadly on the tree so I knew I had to be on my game. We lined them up and he cut an .022 bulb on me, I hope he guessed but I wasn’t to shabby with an .091, which is good for our class. As the weekend was going my car was hanging the tires and hooking again. I think I came around him at the 330 marker and went on for the win with an 11.127 @ 119.98mph to his 11.308 @ 118.45mph.

Now I was on my way to my 2nd chance to go to the SuperBowl race. I was in the finals last year in Joliet and lost to my teammate Matt. Coming into the finals I was definitely ready to roll to a victory. We staged our cars and the lights dropped, I was off with a 1.54 60ft and went thru the beams with an 11.16 @ 117+ mph to a losing 11.35 @ 117mph. I got my 3rd win for the season and retook my points lead going into the reformat for the Chase for the Ring.

Now the SuperBowl race, I was excited but also I had the thoughts of disappointment already in my mind. It’s each man for themselves, you win your race you should get your prize. But the show must go on. They let me run on my .400 pro tree and he runs on his .500 sportsman tree. When my lights came down I was off with an ok .119 light for F/S terms, not for bracket racing. To my surprise at 1000ft I didn’t see his 10.00 car anywhere so I lift and ran an 11.21 on my 11.10 dial. I got my slip and I thought I was good to go, he slept bad with an .389 bulb, odd but whatever I just won the Superbowl race!

Not so fast, while I’m watching the other races go on I hear my car number called saying I have to rerun my race. Needless to say I was a little floored. My car is not a bracket car and it’s not a hot lap car. So I had to find the powers to be and see what was going on. The tower gave my competitor a .400 pro tree and he didn’t know what to do. So the first thing that came to my mind was well I don’t bracket race but I had to do that, oh and also if you Chase it’s a RACE! Well after some decussions we had to do a rerun but I was aloud some time to cool my clutch and car down. When I got it ready to go about 20 minutes later, we were ready to bracket brawl again. We line them up and I rip off a .018 bulb…. GAME ON! I guess he was over excited and went -.032 red. GAME OVER. I win twice. But he still got my ring…..

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