Pinewood Derby winners .
I took the initiative , when I could , to take it to the next level and get more and more involved in our community . It ’ s awesome to see our community rally behind our race program when we ’ re on and off the track and see the impact that we ’ ve made with our race program in a community level .
You ’ ve clearly made it a priority to engage with the community , whether it ’ s the Pinewood Derby events , Right to Read week at the library , or teaching an engineering materials course at the local university . What would you say to other racers considering these opportunities ?
I encourage everybody to get involved with their communities . Even if you can make an impact in one person ’ s life , it ’ s worth the effort . We meet these kids and young people at these events and you may inspire them to go to school to be an engineer , go to a trade school and learn a trade in particular , or even get a Jr . Dragster to start racing themselves . So it ’ s important to get involved in your community . It does make an impact . It does make a difference and we saw that a couple years ago when the mayor of Youngstown gave us the key to the city .
What did it mean to win the team ’ s first NHRA national event at Maple Grove ?
That ’ s something that we ’ ve always strived to do , to get one of those big national event Wallys . We ’ ve only ran eight or so NHRA national events in my dad ’ s career just because it takes a week-long commitment . It ’ s cool that he got to do that and we were able to be together for that experience . We won the final round and it was like , wow , this is pretty special . We ’ ve won on every level and that just kind of sealed my dad ’ s legacy with his racing career . I mean , we won the championships , we won races here and there , but I guess everybody in their drag racing career strives to win a national event . At race eight or nine out , we got it done .
How do partners like Sonnax fit into your program ?
First off , a lot of our sponsors have been very generous to donate posters , banners , and other promo items to give away at these events , so we really appreciate their support there .
As far as the racetrack , we utilize the Sonnax big input shaft system with our Rossler Transmissions Powerglide . As soon as we switched over [ to Sonnax ], we won our first race out with Sonnax and we ’ ve been on an incredible path ever since . We ’ ve always had success on the dragstrip , but Sonnax was the missing link we needed to get our new converter program going . We made the switch and picked up over a tenth and a half and didn ’ t have any problems . We went A to B first pass down the track and came home with the trophy at the end of the day at Kil-Kare Raceway ’ s Quick 16 race last year .
An interesting fact about Sonnax is that most people that race an automatic transmission , whether it ’ s a Rossler or whoever else , USA or worldwide , have Sonnax components . Anybody that has a Powerglide could open it up to find at least one Sonnax part inside . DI
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