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Baytown: Jeff Wilson preview

Wilson to debut new sponsor Associated Builders and Contractors in Houston. WINFIELD, Mo. - NHRA Top Alcohol driver Jeff Wilson has signed several chapters of Associated Builders and Contractors as sponsors for his team in the 2002 season. These ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

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Wilson to debut new sponsor Associated Builders and Contractors in Houston.

WINFIELD, Mo. - NHRA Top Alcohol driver Jeff Wilson has signed several chapters of Associated Builders and Contractors as sponsors for his team in the 2002 season. These ABC chapters join STARCON on board with Wilson Racing, who has been a sponsor the past four years. The Northern Illinois, Central Ohio, Ohio Valley, Northern Ohio, Heart of America - Kansas City, MO Chapter, and the Indiana chapters of ABC have signed on as 2002 sponsors.

Wilson, from Winfield, Mo., feels that the added support from ABC, coupled with a state-of-the-art new racecar being built by renowned chassis builder and innovator Mike Spitzer will give him the tools to run for the Top Alcohol Dragster World Championship this season.

"The ABC chapters sponsoring Wilson Racing represent contractors throughout several Midwestern states. Nationally, ABC represents more than 23,000 contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers and related firms," said Wilson. "ABC members are involved in all specialties of the construction industry. These ABC chapters are major sponsors for us this year. Of course, STARCON is back with us for a fourth year. We are going to continue our relationship with them as well."

"With the additional ABC support, we intend to run a full 16-race schedule," Wilson continued. "We're going for the World Championship. That was our goal when we started four years ago with Starcon. Starcon has grown tremendously the past few years."

Spitzer Race Cars will be an associate backer on the car this year as well.

"We are working with Mike [Spitzer] on developing some of the aerodynamic areas of the car that we wanted to," explained Wilson. "We will run his chassis and wings, and we are going to continue to work throughout the year to improve on his design and some of our ideas. We have a lot of new ideas we are going to try. We want to work with him to try to get the car to be consistent, and try to get the car into the 270 mph range."

"We think we can run 270 with this new car," added Wilson. "Going from our 2000 combination, we think there is that much improvement in our new design. Last year we ran the same combination, and the way we look at it, we were probably 200 HP shy of what the top guys were running. We definitely feel we can run 5.30's [quarter-mile elapsed times], and our goal is to get in some good air and run some 5.20's at over 270 mph. We certainly think the car has the capability. Spitzer is going to work with us on it, and try to help get us there."

Due to time constraints, the team will debut with Spitzer's current design chassis at the O'Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston, Apr. 11-14, then continue to add new aerodynamic equipment with a new car later in the year.

"The first car will be pretty much the conventional Spitzer design," Wilson cited. "It will feature the upswept nosepiece, the laid-forward wing, and the 'splitter' [aerodynamic device behind the motor]. We will just go from there. We only gave him about six weeks to get a car ready, and that isn't enough time to do everything we wanted to do. The gameplan is by midyear to have the new car with some of the new things we want on it. We want to keep the two cars in rotation, and try new things on each of the cars. We'll use the new things that work on the car, and throw the rest away."

ABC is the only national association devoted exclusively to the merit shop philosophy, the principle of providing the best management techniques, the finest craftsmanship, and the most competitive bidding and pricing strategies in the industry, regardless of labor affiliation. Approximately 80 percent of all construction workers are employed by merit shop companies. ABC is committed to developing a safe workplace and high-performance workforce through quality education and training with comprehensive safety and health programs.

STARCON is an Illinois based company founded in 1983. They are a full service mechanical contractor, specializing in refineries, ethanol plants, chemical plants, steel mills, paper mills and powerhouses. The foundation of the company lies in their uncompromising commitment to Safety, Quality, Training and Innovation.

-wr-

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