Madison: Ryan Schnitz final summary

Schnitz Takes Out Number 1 Qualifier

Ryan Schnitz made up for his 16th qualifier unhappiness by eliminating number 1 Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifier Tom Bradford in round 1 at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis. Ryan nailed the tree and the Trim-Tex/Muzzy's Buell laid down its best pass of the weekend to advance.

"We tore the motor apart last night and it looked great, so we put 'Joey' back in," said Schnitz. "We made some small changes to the bike and gave it our best guess and the bike ran great the first round. It was kinda puzzling, 'cause we're not really sure what made that happen."

"For the second round, we said 'We're not changing anything' and made no changes. From third gear on, it just slowed up. Our best conclusion is that something is tying up in the motor and it's just going away. We won't know until it gets back to Oregon and gets taken apart."

The S&S motor is still relatively new, and there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to maintaining them. "There are still some things that don't have a maintenance schedule yet. There's one thing that came about in the last two weeks-the rocker arm tower. It's things like that. You know how many passes you should have on the crank or the main bearings or the rings. If we take the motor apart and there's nothing wrong, then we really won't know what's up."

-sr