Gary Densham RT66 Review

No Luck in the Windy City.

by Bob Benedict, Densham Motorsports.

When Gary Densham and the Team NEC/ Auto Club of Southern Calif. rolled into the beautiful Route 66 Motorsports Park in Joliet, Ill., hopes for the team were running high. " We had just come off of what could have been an excellent race in Englishtown, our Dodge Avenger Funny car performing like it never has before."We just had some bad luck as the front wheels stayed in the air too long and our weekend was a short one."

But Lady Luck refused to shine on Densham in Chicago also. Says Densham, " We qualified in the top half of the field again. There were alot of guys like Cruz and Force running quicker than us, but you have to be able to go rounds to win. With the competition as close as it is this year, quicker does not always win the event.

As Gary faced the number two points leader Chuck Etchells in round one, the odds were pretty even. "We had run 5.08 in qualifying,and that would have beaten him, Gary said. Unfortunatly the car started to lose traction, and I could only watch Etchells go by me".

This year Densham has solidly improved on his performance over last year. " Say's Densham , " It used to be that if you qualified in the bottom half of the field, you realized you didn't stand a chance at winning. Now you can qualify in the top half and still not win!!"

Gary also had nothing but praise for the new Chicago facility. "These folks have really raised the bar for the other NHRA tracks, he said. The sold out crowd of 40,000 also proves the point that "If you build it..they will come !!"

The team now heads to the Pontiac Excitement Nationals in Columbus Ohio June 11-14.

Please visit our website at http:// www.nitro.com