NHRA

Brainerd: Shelly Howard wrap up

Spark plug failure ends Howard's day in round 2 BRAINERD, Minn. - Sometimes in drag racing, everything seems to go your way, and you can do nothing wrong. On the other hand, some days you just can't seem to get a break. The latter was the case for ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Spark plug failure ends Howard's day in round 2

BRAINERD, Minn. - Sometimes in drag racing, everything seems to go your way, and you can do nothing wrong. On the other hand, some days you just can't seem to get a break. The latter was the case for NHRA Federal Mogul Dragster driver Shelly Howard during this past weekend's Colonel's Truck Accessory Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., when a metal shaving grounded out the No. 7 spark plug, causing her to slow and lose her second round match up with Billy Bybee.

Howard's problems started in qualifying. A broken main cap caused the team to have to change motors after Friday's first session. The already short handed crew, including one crew member who had recently broken an arm (Shane Conway), was unable to finish the motor change in time to make Friday's second session.

Nonetheless, the Tulsa, Okla., native qualified her Tom Conway tuned Blown Alcohol Dragster fifth with a 5.592 second pass at 251.53 mph during Saturday morning's final session. In round one, she received a single when her scheduled opponent Ed Schmeekle could not make the call. Howard improved on her qualifying time by running a 5.522 at 254.52 mph. In her second round match up with Bybee, she was never in the race, as the dead cylinder slowed her to a 5.956 at 225.86 mph, while Bybee improved on his earlier pace with a 5.524 at 253.26 mph. The quarterfinal finish gave her enough points to regain the fourth spot in national standings from Division 4 rival Jay Meyer.

"We had a cylinder go out," said Howard. "We got back from the run, and thought we had a bad plug wire, and checked it. When we found that wasn't the problem, we checked out the plug. There was a sliver of metal that had somehow adhered itself to the plug and grounded it out."

"I knew it was only running on seven cylinders in the burnout," Howard continued. "It didn't leave the line efficiently, and definitely didn't run as efficiently as it could. I could tell it wasn't going to go anywhere, shifted gears, and just kind of ran it out a little in case something happened to Bybee. That put an end to our weekend."

Even with the disappointing loss, Howard finds comfort in knowing that it only was a fluke problem, and no major engine damage was done. Especially considering her next race is the biggest event in drag racing, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at the famed Indianapolis Raceway Park.

"It's better than not knowing what happened," stated Howard. "It's better than finding something that broke in that round. We thought we had broken a motor at first, so I was extremely happy that no parts were hurt."

"We made a few points," added Howard. "The weekend was alright. Going into Indy, we have to look at it as another race, take it a round at a time, and make things work to our advantage."

-SHR-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Brainerd: David Wells wrap up

Next article Indianapolis: Worsham preview

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why McLaren cannot fix its F1 car handling until 2027

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

6 min

Why McLaren cannot fix its F1 car handling until 2027

Christian Horner clears air on “dream job” Ferrari rumours and sets return terms

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

26 min

Christian Horner clears air on “dream job” Ferrari rumours and sets return terms

Adrien Fourmaux confident of WRC drive despite 2027 uncertainty

WRC

WRC WRC 46 min

Adrien Fourmaux confident of WRC drive despite 2027 uncertainty

Ducati rubbishes claim 2026 MotoGP bike built specifically for Marc Marquez

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Indonesian GP

1 h

Ducati rubbishes claim 2026 MotoGP bike built specifically for Marc Marquez

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts