TAVO (CT) HELLMUND SALVAGES 13TH ON SEVEN CYLINDERS IN “NAPA AUTO PARTS 150”

Source: TQ Jones/Helmund Racing
Date: 08/03/2004

IRWINDALE, California -- Although he had never raced at the modern half-mile Irwindale Speedway outside Los Angeles, Tavo (CT) Hellmund and the Suzuki Motorcycles and ATVs team were unusually a little off in the short practice session, but had the car ready for qualifying in Saturday’s NASCAR Grand National West Series NAPA Auto Parts 150. Unfortunately, Hellmund got an early qualifying draw and changing track conditions benefited the later qualifiers. Hellmund qualified 13th.

When the green flag dropped, Hellmund followed the teams plan of just settling into a comfortable pace until the second half. Unfortunately, their plans went out the window when the car began losing power. The oil pressure was good, but the engine was running on only seven cylinders and only pulling 7,300 rpm instead of the usual 8,400.

“Although we could not find what the problem was, we decided to just keep running it unless the oil pressure fell. It slowly got worse even with every blower off. With 65 laps to go we seriously considered to pit, and change plug wires but that would have meant losing many laps. Although we never found the problem that night, the following day we did discover a burned plug wire. It was in a place that we definitely would not have seen quickly, so we did the right thing. It’s a testament to the motors that Bill Maropulos builds that we could still run 19.3’s and 19.4’s on seven cylinders more than half the race. Overall, we were only about a sixth place car without the problem, which is not very good, but we were still able to race with the #20 car but just couldn’t complete the passes because he’d pull us off the corners and down the straights.” Hellmund, Mexico’s only driver with wins in several NASCAR divisions, felt they had a decent finish under the circumstances, but was disappointed about something else.

“This is the first time in seven races with this car that we’ve finished outside the top seven,” he said. “The Suzuki team has run this car six times in the West, with a win and a couple of second place runs, plus a third, a fourth and a seventh. That’s not bad for an old 110-inch car, but we won’t let a performance like the one at Irwindale happen again.

“Our next race is, we hope, the Labor Day weekend at Rocky Mountain Raceways in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since we ran second there last year, we’re looking forward to improving by one place on that finish, but it’s getting tougher to do that with these guys that are well funded and have 105” cars,” Hellmund smiled.

See Also .:

• Tavo (CT) Hellmund Driver Card

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