K&N's Jacob Elrod Grabs IHRA Div 3 Super Rod Points Lead After Victory in Clay City
- 30 Aug 2011
Elrod's first divisional event of the weekend on Saturday was certainly no thermometer of what was in store for him the following day. "In the first round on Saturday, I got a seven thou package put on me," he confessed. "I wasn't exactly like a lame duck or anything. I was hitting the tree all weekend, in fact I couldn't keep the car green in time runs and I kept having to throw more time in the box to not go red. So when she went .003 and dead-on with a four, I was like, well that hurt. Then I just got to spend the rest of my day watching everyone else on the team race." But before the team could wrap up their day on Saturday, they spent quite a lot of time into the wee morning hours changing several converters on one of the other team cars. Elrod points out that they continued to deal with various mechanical gremlins with the team's Quick Rod dragster on Sunday morning and he knew his chances of going rounds in that class were not good. "Based on how the dragster was acting, I went into first round thinking I probably wasn't going to win in Quick Rod that day, but things were going very well in the Super Rod car," he explained. "I was able to get by first round with a better light and Wade just didn't have his car set up right and went way under the 6.40 index."
That would move Elrod on to his second round pairing with Josh Baker. "I had been watching this kid earlier in the weekend and he was just brutal at driving the stripe," noted Jacob. "So when we ran I knew I wasn't going to be cutting this guy any slack. I think during our run, it may have been the only time all weekend that his missed the tree. The car was just running good and I was going dead-on that run." Baker opened a two hundredths window of opportunity for Elrod right off the line when he only managed a .041 light to Elrod's .021 which easily allowed him to dump and push Baker under the index. "The car and I were gelling together and at the same time," he said. "The car was making dead-on runs every round and it's nice to know you can trust what you've dialed [in the throttle stop]." Elrod's dominance continued into the semifinals where he was paired up with Arlie Boggs. Elrod used a .013 advantage at the tree to push Boggs .008 under the index ET, all while staying safe with his 6.415 and on the final where he would meet up with David Moore. "We had a joke in the semi's and I kinda owed him one," Elrod laughed as he explained about his final round competitor. "I had pulled up next to David and he had asked who was left. I said Texas [Arlie Boggs] and Vernon [Rowland] and he said well you take Texas and I'll take Vernon and I told him, heck with that. I ran Texas yesterday and he put a seven thou package on me. Well, that's the way the cards ended up being drawn so I had to run Texas again." "I had run Moore earlier this year at Pittsburgh and knew what his lights were like there," he continued. "I told him before our final that he had let the cat out of the bag and I knew he was hitting the tree now. I said I'm not setting up for any worse than a twenty on you now. He laughed and told me that he had just had a .141 light and that I could go ahead and pad the box back up again. I laughed back at him and said that no, we won't be doing that." Elrod and Moore were nearly dead even on their launch, with only one thousandth of a second between them and the advantage was Elrod's all the way. Elrod let Moore have the stripe and stayed safe with a 6.407 for the Super Rod victory. "It was definitely a confidence booster as we head into Indy," Elrod said of his win. "Here lately, it has just been brutal. Between now and then we have a couple of things that we just want to tweak on the cars before we get to the U.S. Nationals." "We have made some improvements to our cars this year and some of the biggest ones have been the addition of the K&N carbon scoops that include the high flowing K&N filters," he said. "Just in this car, I can see a big difference in the consistency in the airflow compared to the scoop that we had on it. This car has improved and we are even seeing more horsepower output thanks to what the K&N scoop provides." "Plus we are using the K&N wrench-off oil filters on every one of our cars now," he continued. "You know sometimes we just want to pull a filter off to check or we need to take it off to get to something else, like the converter changing we were doing on the one dragster this weekend. Well, with other non-K&N filters that we used to use, we had a big problem with them collapsing when you would try to take them off. By using the K&N oil filters, we haven't had one problem with anything like that. That kind of thing is very reassuring." Elrod also mentioned how important racing with his family is, in times of good and bad. "You know, we just all pitch in and help one another with whatever needs to be done," he said. "With my brother, Tony, in the Top Dragster final on Saturday night plus Dad and I both in our respective finals on Sunday, we were hopping as usual all weekend. I want to say a special thank you to my sister Jamie, who was a just tremendous help all weekend." Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world. |
