PHOTO: CHRIS SEARS |
the Yellow Bullet Nationals [ in September ] but at the last minute, Eddie decided we were gonna’ go for it,” Albrecht says.
In what was a huge surprise to the Al-Lee Motorsports team— as well as many others in the Outlaw 10.5 vs. Radial Wars class— Albrecht drove his way to the number-one qualifying spot. His killer
4.00 at 194.21-mph blast easily bested big-name drivers including Kevin Fiscus, Nick Agostino, Shawn Ayers and many more.
The underdog continued his attack race day and“ accidentally” wound up winning the entire thing.“ It’ s insane that we weren’ t even going to go at first, but thank God we did!” Albrecht professes. The Yellow Bullet race wound up being a pivotal turning point for Albrecht and Whalen, as they realized they had a hell of a hot rod on their hands and their future was brighter than originally anticipated.“ Was it the fastest? Absolutely not!” Albrecht realizes.“ But it’ s consistent, and we have a good team, and that’ s half the battle.”
Maintaining their momentum, the two headed to South Georgia Motorsports Park the following month. The 2016 iteration of the No Mercy race marked the first
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time Albrecht would run the GTO in the class Whalen had truly purchased it for: Radial vs. the World. In a mind-blowingly competitive field filled with 40 of the top radial drivers from all over the country, Albrecht qualified incredibly well with a 3.83 at 196.82 mph that put nearly the entire class to shame, and he made it look easy.
BLOWN BEAST
“ We knew everyone would be flying at Duck’ s race, so we thought if we could qualify halfway decent, we’ d be happy,” states Albrecht, who far exceeded even his own expectations.
Once eliminations began, the young man continued to impress and put his bracket racing skills to work with consistent lights and excellent driving. He made it all the way through to the final round and had dreams of getting the win, but the“ Big Daddy” De- Wayne Mills outran him at the finish.“ To look at the list of names I ran with is truly incredible. These are the people I look up to! The
year before this, I was the nobody getting thrown off the starting line because I was trying to watch, and now not only am I racing with these guys, but I’ m beating them. It’ s indescribable, surreal, and truly humbling,” says Albrecht, displaying a tremendous amount of respect for opponents who have been at it far longer than he has.
The power plant of choice for Albrecht and Whalen is a 526 ci Brad Anderson Hemi with a massive screw-type supercharger sitting atop the intake manifold. A QuickDrive transmission and Neal Chance torque converter were also added to the former Outlaw 10.5 car in preparation for its assault on the Radial vs. the World competition.
“ I can’ t even be mad that I lost, because it was six months after we bought a car that we didn’ t even know how to start!”
In January 2017, with hopes of finding redemption at the upcoming Lights Out 8 race, Whalen and Albrecht brought their Al-Lee Motorsports GTO to Bradenton Motorsports Park for the U. S. Street Nationals.“ We had made some changes since No Mercy just tryin’ to get a handle on the car and creep up on it a bit,” Albrecht notes. Unfortunately, after a handful of testing passes on Wednesday before the race itself, the car kicked the rods out and put a big
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ol’ bearing inspection window in the BAE block. The forceful blast also caused significant damage to the car’ s front end, and the drive back home to New York was a long one. Whalen and Albrecht could only pray the catastrophe wasn’ t foreshadowing how the rest of their season would go.
With great support from manufacturers and sponsors, as well as a seemingly never-ending thrash session, the GTO was brought back to life. G-Force Race Cars repaired the block, Goodrich supplied all new lines and hoses, and miraculously, the car was back up and running in time for Lights Out 8 in mid-February.
When Whelan and Albrecht pulled into Georgia on the Monday before the big race, they were cautiously optimistic about their odds. Testing began on Tuesday and they were finally able to acquire the data they had hoped for in Florida.“ The car was shaking the tires and we knew something wasn’ t right. It wasn’ t running the way it should, and we eventually found a few electrical gremlins that we were able to get resolved during qualifying,” Albrecht says of the stressful situation.
With bolstered spirits, qualifying for the“ World Series of Small Tire Racing” officially got under way with Albrecht back in the prestigious Radial vs. The World category. This time around, the class had grown to accommodate 51 of the world’ s quickest and fastest, and once again, Albrecht was an unexpected frontrunner. A 3.81 pass at 202.42 mph put him solidly in third, but the feat didn’ t come without incident.“ We had the starter kick back on us and it took five teeth off the flexplate, so I made new teeth out of welding rod and got it back together during qualifying. It actually came out pretty good,” Albrecht proudly explains with typical New Yorker“ can-do” attitude.
Eliminations began with Albrecht getting a win over Chad Opaleski.“ We had a one-dollar driver’ s bet on whoever leaves the line first, and I won the dollar!” recalls Albrecht, sounding just as excited about winning the bet as advancing to face off against Shane Stack in round two.“ We took a bunch of power out but still
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