NHRA

Charlotte: Mike Neff preview

NEFF WANTS SECOND CHARLOTTE "WIN" CHARLOTTE (September 10, 2008) --- In May Mike Neff toured the under construction zMAX Dragway at Concord with 14-time Funny Car champion, teammate and boss John Force. They got a firsthand look at the state ...

Published: Sep 10, 2008, 9:06 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

NEFF WANTS SECOND CHARLOTTE "WIN"

CHARLOTTE (September 10, 2008) --- In May Mike Neff toured the under construction zMAX Dragway at Concord with 14-time Funny Car champion, teammate and boss John Force. They got a firsthand look at the state of the art complex and they were even allowed to make a pass to get acquainted with the new facility. Granted the "race" was in giant Volvo dump trucks on the newly graded "racetrack" but in Neff's mind when he crossed the finish line well ahead of the winningest driver in drag racing history a win was a win.

The next day Neff wowed the Coca-Cola 600 crowd with a tremendous burn-out down pit road prior to the NASCAR Sprint Cup event. Neff backed up and positioned his 8,000 hp fuel coupe for the first full powered NHRA burnout in the history of Lowes Motor Speedway. When Neff hit the throttle a massive cloud of smoke bellowed from his Mustang and as he powered down pit road past many of the stars of NASCAR the roar of the crowd was deafening.

"That was awesome. Making that burn-out was incredible. I had to get off the throttle because I could feel my Old Spice Mustang starting to really pull. I think it was about to hook-up on pit road. When I got to the end of pit road there were people everywhere congratulating me on putting on such a great show," said Neff.

He has put on a good show on the NHRA POWERade tour as well reaching three finals and grabbing one number one qualifier so far this season. As the only rookie in the Countdown to 1 Neff feels like he has already reached one of his goals for the 2008 season.

"Getting in the Countdown to 1 was definitely one of our goals at the beginning of the year. We really wanted to get in there. It feels good to get that monkey off our back."

Making the Countdown to 1 was a major step for the former world championship crew chief but there is one goal on the horizon that Neff and his Old Spice team have narrowly missed and he hopes that this weekend in Charlotte he can check getting his first win off his to-do list.

"I don't really feel we have hit our stride yet. It kind of goes in cycles some guys will get hot for a couple of races and some guys get cold for a couple of races. There is a cycle to these things. I think we got a little bit going when we made it to those two finals back-to-back," said Neff of his St. Louis and Bristol efforts. "Hopefully we can get hot again. We have been struggling here a little bit but we showed a better sign of life today in Reading. If we can get a little bit of momentum and hit our stride to pound out a few good races in a row I think that will be the key."

Neff and crew chief John Medlen have meshed into one of the best driver crew chief combinations in the Funny Car ranks. They are constantly conferring and discussing options and how Neff's BOSS 500 powered Mustang is running. Neff however defers to Medlen on all tuning decisions and feels that he can concentrate on driving better knowing that Medlen and his crew will have the car set up perfectly.

"The goal at the very beginning of the year at least how I viewed it was make the Countdown to 1. That was our first goal and then after that we want to try to be a contender. We are going to be spotting those guys quite a few points ahead of us but you never know what can happen once you get to the race track," added Neff.

-credit: -www.johnforceracing.com-

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 Charlotte: Doug Kalitta preview

Next article Charlotte: Tom Hammonds preview

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

How Red Bull's crucial strategy call helped Max Verstappen win the "Maxico Grand Prix"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

How Red Bull's crucial strategy call helped Max Verstappen win the "Maxico Grand Prix"

Why MotoGP's handling of the Qatar Grand Prix could alienate an entire generation of fans

MotoGP

Malaysian GP

Why MotoGP's handling of the Qatar Grand Prix could alienate an entire generation of fans

Toyota explains call to run Celica and Yaris models in WRC 2027

WRC

WRC WRC 2 h

Toyota explains call to run Celica and Yaris models in WRC 2027

Isack Hadjar blames himself for George Russell clash that “ruined” his Mexico GP

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

2 h

Isack Hadjar blames himself for George Russell clash that “ruined” his Mexico GP

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