Napa Q32 to have New Lady Player + teamed Up Veterans in play for 2011 

Hinbest Racing will add a second car and two veteran racers have teamed to debut for Top Dragster in the popular Napa Quick 32 series this season…
Katie Ward to drive second team Top Dragster in Series
 
When the Hinbest Racing Team takes to the track this year in Quick 32 Sportsman Series presented by NAPA Auto Parts competition, it will be with a two-car drag racing effort.
 
Team driver Michael Hinbest will continue to race behind the wheel of his Top Dragster, but the team will be complimented with the addition of a second Top Dragster entry, driven by Katie Ward.
 
“We plan on running both cars in the whole series,” noted Hinbest, who placed 10th in the Championship Point Award Series last season. “Katie enjoys being in a male-dominated sport, and is not easy to intimidate.”
 
Hinbest’s Top Dragster will receive new cylinder heads on the supercharged ERD (Engine Research & Development) powerplant, but other changes will be few for 2011, noted Hinbest.
 
“We will be running a relatively similar package this year,” he noted. “We’re going for consistency this year rather than horsepower.”
 
Hinbest qualified number one for five of six events last year in Quick 32 Sportsman Series, and put together a string of eighth and quarter-final rounds. He added that this year the team will concentrate on consistency and each member of the crew will concentrate on their duties, while he works on his driving.
 
“Our goal this year is to get more consistent lights,” he said. “Each crew member will play a specific role, and allow me to focus on racing.”
 
Crew chief for Hinbest and the Mike Bos dragster is Roy Hinbest. Other team members include Irene, Robert, Stephen, and Kailynn Hinbest.
 
Behind the 540-cubic inch ERD powerplant is a Coan Engineering two-speed Powerglide and a SSI Supercharger sits atop the engine. Best run to date for the team is a 6.12-second, 227 mph clocking.
 
Sponsors for the team include NAPA Auto Parts, Ideal Supply, Tire Discounter Group, The Canadian Automotive Institute, Roy’s Service Centre, Quaker State, Porta-cool, Fire Ball Coatings, NGK Spark Plugs, NAPA Brake and Chassis Products, Permatex, Fast Eddie Racewear, RSC Automotive Sales Consulting.
 
A special thanks goes to Carl, Terry and Rob at ERD.
 
Ward, who is from Orangeville, and a university student, will be driving the team’s other car, a Bos dragster with a nitrous-assisted ERD engine. She has been driving in the Top ET class in an eight-second dragster, and will be stepping up her efforts for 2011. The new car will be part of the Hinbest Racing display at the upcoming Performance World Custom Car and Truck Show in Toronto this weekend at the International Center.
 
Hinbest said the weekends of racing in the Quick 32 Sportsman Series is a family ritual for the team.
 
“We like the series,” he said. “We enjoy the fact that we can race with fast, high-caliber cars and teams. And the whole family enjoys the series. We see it as our vacation time.”
 
Check out the Hinbest Racing interactive website at, www.hinbestracing.com
 
Nedham and Etter bring lots of experience to the table in drag race series
 
A pair of veteran drag racers are entering into the Quick 32 Sportsman Series presented by NAPA Auto Parts for 2011, and will share the driving duties.
 
Phil Nedham and Mike Etter have worked together in the past, and the two decided to form a team in April of last year.
 
“We started talking last March,” said Nedham, who last raced in 2005. “Mike has the truck and trailer, and I had the car, so we thought we’d get together on this.”
 
The Senior Moment Motorsports Team will field a Top Dragster entry in the Quick 32 Sportsman Series. The Mike Bos 250-inch dragster will be powered by a 511-cubic inch Chevrolet engine with a Kinsler Fuel Injection system running on alcohol.  “With the stack injection, we’re doing it ‘old school’, but we’re not opposed to adding some nitro to make sure we’re in the show,” he added. 
 
Nedham has raced a variety of cars over the years, his first being a 401-Buick powered dragster, a Pro Stock car, a supercharged Alcohol dragster and an injected altered. Etter’s credentials are just as strong. The Brantford, Ontario resident has been one of a handful of Canadians to hold an NHRA nitro fuel license, and campaigned his “Nerves of Steel” Top Alcohol Funny Car in which he won the 2005 North American UDRA Championship.
 
While most of Etter’s seat time has been in a Funny Car, he said his first real race car was a front-engined dragster he raced in 1977. Over the winter of that year, he took the 170-inch wheelbase car and built it into a 239-inch rear-engined dragster, but that didn’t last.
 
“I saw some Funny Cars and I then had too much of a hankering for one,” he said, so in 2000 he bought the Optima Pontiac Funny Car, formerly campaigned by the Paton family. He raced in the IHRA for a few years before parking the car in 2006.
 
“Our roots in Southern Ontario drag racing run deep,” commented Nedham. “I can remember the days back in the early ‘70s at Dragway Park when I used to watch the likes of Ivo, Garlits and Shirley match racing”.
 
Etter will be crew chief for the team, and others helping out include Blackjack Lawrence, Jim Dorsey, Steve Hutton and Mike’s wife Victoria, along with Phil’s wife Marsha who is the car owner.
 
Nedham said the car is now finished and lettered with the team’s main sponsor, the Prostate Cancer Canada Network, which provides a personal aspect for Nedham, who is a prostate cancer survivor.
 
“Part of the reason for doing this is for fun, obviously,” he noted. “But I also have personal vested interest early prostate cancer detection. It is an absolute crime to see men lose their lives and families lose their men to a disease that can be easily detected very early and successfully managed.  Our mission is to get the word out there for all men to get a regular physical examination.”
 
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Etter about his return to racing. “Phil called me last year and said ‘what do you think’, so we started looking for a car and engine.”
 
Etter added that over the winter the team had the engine completely rebuilt, and the car is on display at the upcoming Performance World Custom Car and Truck Show in Toronto this weekend at the International Center.
 
The team wanted to give special thanks to Harry Manovich at Milton Transmission, Terry Mason and Dwayne Leask of Terry’s Engine Centre in Oshawa.
 
Nedham, Etter, and the rest of the Senior Moments crew will be ready for the opening round of the Quick 32 Sportsman Series which gets under way May 20-22 at the Cayuga Dragway of Toronto Motorsports Park as part of the Victoria Day Weekend Challenge.
 
Phil can be contacted at nedham@rogers.com, Mike at m9etter@sympatico.ca.  For more information on the great work being done by Prostate Cancer Canada Network – Brampton, visit them at www.pccnbrampton.com
 
For more information contact Bruce F. Mehlenbacher at Bruce@Quick32.ca
 
Posted by: Tim Miller