Lesenko to the Ledge!
St. Albert Alberta’s Todd Lesenko is now positioned much closer to a highly anticipated debut within NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Fuel Funny Car class racing…..
By: Bruce Biegler
The latest news from the new Can-Am team combination which is co-owned by Lesenko and legendary Steve Plueger (from California), is that their class debut may now come during the NHRA event at Seattle (August 5-7th).
“We had hoped to start running our program at Sonoma (California) but that is now being pushed back due to some shortages in rear end components,” Lesenko explained. “Once that is resolved we also want to do some testing which will likely happen first at Bakersfield this month. We want to make sure our program is down so we can be fully prepared to run (competitively) at Indy during the NHRA U.S. Nationals.”
Todd Lesenko is poised for the "Big Show"!
The move to the NHRA “Big Show” for Lesenko could potentially be one of the bigger news stories for the second half of the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. It is a cool melding together of the Plueger name known synonymous within Funny Car history, and Lesenko, a highly motivated and determined Canadian racer.
Up to this point Lesenko has been making a solid name for himself – racing Nostalgia Funny Cars in conjunction with Plueger.
“Steve is a real innovator and has the ability to develop a well working program at this high level,” Todd continued. “I am a businessman and a racer and I know all of this takes time and money. But be assured – there is no fooling around here. Our intentions in going “Big Show” racing is not just to qualify and be happy – we want to go rounds.”
Lesenko and Plueger are partners on the new venture which inherits a pair of Funny Cars which were originally built (with funding from Chrysler) for Del Worsham back in 2008.
A early sneek preview from the Pleuger racing stable!
Todd Lesenko has completed the upgrade to his NHRA fuel FC license already. He did that over a period of 2 days last season when he made a total of 8 runs under the supervision of Del Worsham. His best run was 4.18 secs at 308 mph during that process.
Todd Lesenko has been running this Nostalgia-bodied Mustang very successfully during 2011
Lesenko plans to continue to be active within the Nostalgia Nitro FC class going forward racing his current 1973-bodied Mustang. But let there be no doubt he is already looking over his visor with much anticipation to his upcoming higher level driving assignment.
“I feel blessed to have this opportunity – to be able to sit in one of this guy’s cars and to be a partner racing with him,” Todd concluded. “I’ve very pumped – I cannot wait to tee this all up.”
Bruce Biegler Photos
