Englishtown: Gary Densham Friday summary

Defending champ showing upward growth

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. (June 17, 2005) -- There's nothing like running your best quarter-mile pass of the season to lift you and your race team's spirits, which is exactly the scenario Racebricks Funny Car driver Gary Densham faces entering this weekend's 36th annual K&N Filters Supernationals presented by Advance Auto Parts at historic Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.

Densham, a two-time winner of this event, zoomed to a 4.843-second quarter-mile elapsed time at the POWERade tour's last stop in Chicago. It's the quickest he's gone all season and the improvement he showed at Route 66 has him excited about defending his Englishtown title.

"This Racebricks car has become more and more consistent as the year's gone along," Densham said. "Once you find consistency then it becomes a lot easier to fine tune your set-up and make those incremental gains it takes to run numbers like the top teams. Then you start winning rounds and it just snowballs from there."

So far, Densham is not qualified for the race after just two of four qualifying sessions. Densham smoked the tires during both sessions Friday, going 7.988 at 100.58 for his best effort. Although he's the defending champion of this race and a three-time finalist at this facility, Densham knows past history won't help him much this time through. Since his last visit to Old Bridge, the veteran of four decades of drag racing left the powerful John Force Racing camp and ventured back out on his own.

With sponsorship from Racebricks collectables, Torco Fuels, and the Auto Club of Southern California, Densham reassembled a team and attacked the 2005 season. It's been a learning process for many of his wet-behind-the-ears crewmen, but employing the teaching processes he learned in his years at Gahr High School in Bellflower, Calif., his group has evolved into a capable crew of mechanics.

"We'll start winning rounds very soon, I think," Densham said. "We have the pieces we need to succeed and the crew has done a great job coming together. Their individual willingness to learn has helped tremendously. It'll be very satisfying when we start seeing success on the racetrack. These guys deserve some rewards for their efforts.

"I'm excited about Racebricks and Torco also. We need to show them our thanks by having big Sundays. That's ultimately why sponsors pay you money, to get exposure, and the best way to get them exposure is by having success on the track. We're very close to making that happen."

-gs-