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2019 NMRA/NMCA Superbowl of Drag Racing – Joliet, IL

By August 21, 2019 News, Shop Car Updates

Team VMS brings home NMRA Limited Street class WIN in Joliet, IL as well as Nitto Tire Diamond Ring at the 2019 NMRA/NMCA Superbowl of Street Legal Drag Racing!

Samantha gets her FIRST ever NMRA win, taking her car to the top of the heads-up class, Limited Street!

Just 3 races into her rookie season of NMRA Heads Up Racing Series, Samantha clinches the “Victor” trophy along with the coveted Nitto Tire Diamond Ring!

“The road to victory was full of ups and downs, highs and lows, but triumph in the end.” After the Maplegrove race, Sam had done some testing with the new VMP Gen3R supercharger. She had to make a decision about what blower to run for the upcoming race. The new Gen3R is an amazing blower on so many levels, which we will go into detail in another article, however the NMRA rules committee put a large “Pulley Penalty” on the Gen3R, significantly taking the blower out of the power making potential. “We had really good luck with the old Gen3 in Maplegrove at the last race, I knew what it was capable of and had confidence in the car and that entire set up, so I made the decision to put the old Gen3 back on it for the Joliet race.”

During testing at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL, the intercooler pump was starting to fail, leading to extremely high manifold air temps. Dan & Sam worked with what they had at the track in an effort to get the pump to work and make it live through the weekend. After some frustration and ingenuity, they were able to get the pump to work for short periods of time, enough to get down the track at “reasonable” MAT temperature for the weekend. Battling temps, they were able to put down a qualifying pass of 8.85 at 153+ mph, landing her in the #4 qualifying spot. “We knew the car had more potential if we could keep the temps down, but with the extreme heat/weather, and lack of intercooler flow, we decided to focus on keeping it safe and consistent.”

On Saturday night for Round #1 of eliminations, Samantha was paired up with the #5 qualifier Larry Starost in his Green 2013 Turbocharged Coyote. The pair lined up and Sam took the win with an 8.84 at 154+ mph pass.

Sunday morning brought the 2nd round of eliminations (Semi-Finals) where she lined up with the #1 qualifier and 2018 LS Champion, Mike Ciborowski’s and his Red 2014 Coyote. Samantha confidently raced her race, clicking off a 8.86 at 153mph trusting her team and the car, taking the win!

Now it was time for the Finals! And for the first time in NMRA history, it was to be an ALL FEMALE final #4 vs #3 qualifier (#2 ranked in points) Sondra Leslie’s White Foxbody Mustang with a Vortech Supercharged Coyote under the hood. The two quickly “put them in the beams”, and although Sondra got the jump, Samantha had the power and drove around here clicking a 8.87 at 153mph taking the race win and her FIRST ever class win at a professional level!

This is the first trip to the Aerospace Winners Circle for Team VMS!

After all the class winners were crowned, it was time for the NMRA vs NMCA Superbowl Shootout! In memory of Bob Curran, this once a year event, pairs up NMRA classes to face off against similar NMCA classes. The team with the most wins, receives the coveted Nitto Tire Diamond Superbowl Ring! This year the shootout was a close battle with the NMRA winning the shootout by 1 race! Team NMRA has won the Superbowl for the last several years and is on a dominate path to victory every year! Sam was paired up with the NMCA Nitrous Pro Street class (1/8 mile only) where she faced Tony Gilig, and barely lost the race, Gilig won on the hole-shot! It was all in fun though and everyone had a great time and enjoyed their time in the winners circle and team NMRA received the rings again for 2019!

“One word comes to mind to me with this race, CONSISTENCY. Once we got past the testing blues, we got into the groove with the car and it ran 8.8x at 15xmph EVERY SINGLE TIME. I could count on the car to hook and book and focus on driving. This is just our 3rd NMRA race EVER in a heads up series, and I completely rebuilt the entire car, from the front to the back, inside and out, literally everything is different this year…and I am shocked and extremely proud of this car and our team for not only coming into this very competitive class, but doing so with such a force and causing some ripples in this 2019 season. We have qualified in the top half of the field EVERY race, including the St. Louis race (our shakedown race)…fast forward just 2 more races, and we are taking home the Victor Trophy!? I couldn’t do this without my team (Vector Motorsports), my Crew Chief (& business partner) Dan Sienkiewicz, and all of my sponsors who took a chance on me and helped me out this season. I have overcome a lot of adversity and have learned so much just in the last year alone, and it just feels really good to win and has made every single long/bad/hard day worth it.  Im very lucky to have a great team behind me and some very knowledgeable, seasoned guidance by my side.” – Sam

“Cars at this level are a lot of work, and most teams go into their first seasons trying to figure out the car, trying to fix problems, fight gremlins, and battle every moment trying to just get it to work…don’t get me wrong we have a long way to go, but I’m very proud of the progress we have already made on the car. However, we will continue to turn over every part of this combination to find any available power. Within racing or any other sport you have to strive to be better all the time, if you become complacent you will become stagnant and not excel. Most people forget that a race car is a complete system, when you change one thing it has a ripple effect on many other items, so you have to methodically walk through each process, understand and evaluate before making decisions. We are looking forward to the next race in Bowling Green, KY, for the All Ford World Finals!” -Dan


Huge THANK YOU to
my Sponsors:

  • UPR Products

  • AUS Injection

  • Coan Engineering

  • Brisk Spark Plugs

  • Slawko Racing Heads

  • JLT Performance

  • VMP Performance

  • Bear Block Motors

and my entire team at
Vector Motorsports!

And THANK YOU to
my Supporters:

  • The Car Guys Garage
  • Strange Engineering
  • VP Racing Fuels
  • Mickey Thompson Tires
  • Magnaflow
  • Holley EFI
  • Moroso
  • Kooks
  • Menscer Motorsports
  • Corbeau Seats


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