K&N's Mike Ferderer Claims Title of Winningest Super Gas Driver After Las Vegas Victory
- 21 Apr 2010
Ferderer is about as professional as they come and easily proved that all over again during the Summitracing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While at other events he may run in Super Comp or even Top Sportsman, since his car is capable of running in the seven's, Ferderer chose to compete at this event in Super Gas and went in to the opening round of eliminations set on kill. The reigning Northwest Division Super Gas Champ picked off his first round opponent in a holeshot win and continued to saw the tree in two throughout the entire event. His worst light, a .024, came in the bye during the semi-final round, which was more than likely due to the distraction Ferderer's car caused after going on the limiter. "Went I went up on the two-step during my bye all of the sudden it went ka-bang," exclaimed Ferderer. "Right as the tree comes on and I'm like "Wow". It about blew off the K&N hood scoop, good thing they're built well." "So when I let it go, it ran real slow and it just wasn't right and I thought, uh oh," he continued. "I get back and take a look at the coil wire and it had actually blown a hole in it. I'm thinking what in the heck is going on here." "I ran over to Kurt Johnson's trailer, who is a personal friend of mine and asked for a coil wire. You know I have three pre-made and they are somewhere in the trailer," said Ferderer of his thrash to make it to the lanes for the Super Gas Final. "So I got one, got back to my pit and put it on the car, lit the car off and it still didn't sound right." "I thought, ‘now what is it' and I looked inside the distributor and the two nylon screws that hold the rotor in place were messed up. One was sheared off and the other was loose, so the rotor was going out of phase and bouncing all around. I tightened the one up as much as I could and even today, I'm not sure if it really held right," continued Ferderer. "I didn't know what it was going to do in the final." Both Washington State resident Ferderer and his rotor did their jobs in the final round match up against Super Gas competitor Dennis Paz. With another double-oh on the tree and a margin at the stripe of just one-hundredth of a second, Ferderer nabbed his fourteenth NHRA Super Gas national event win and now holds the number one spot of national wins in the category. He also has seven other NHRA national wins that he claimed in Super Comp and all of these puts him well into the Top Fifty NHRA National Event winners lost of all time. With all of Ferderer's experience, he makes an interesting observation of the weekend's string of events. "If you are honest with yourself, you'll judge yourself as to how you did," explained Ferderer. "If you got just luckier than heck the whole race or one round or in my case I got lucky one round because my single came on the round the car broke. But looking back, I feel I drove the best during this race as I have in a long time." "I was taking four, five, eight thousandths at the stripe and in the final I took a hundredth against a car that was only running one-hundred-twenty-some MPH and I'm running one-seventy." "And everything worked out," he chuckled. "I wouldn't want to do it again today, because I would probably lose. But it worked out on Sunday. The K&N car really did work well. When things go together, you just can't do anything wrong." In addition to the results Ferderer receives from protecting his engine with K&N oil filters, Ferderer is also quite happy with the now proven strength of his new K&N Pro Stock Style Hood Scoop, not to mention the added power it gave him. "After adding it, I instantly picked up three MPH and wow," he said. "If you are going to pay good money for a scoop, you might as well by the right one from the start. Good parts and bad parts all cost money and the K&N scoops are just designed so much better." "With all the products K&N offers, I mean if they perform this well under the demands of a high-powered race car, they sure as heck will perform really well in a street car," he added. 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. |
