Pomona Tom Martino Thursday Notes

On the surface, Tom Martino's first qualifying pass for the AutoZone Winternationals would appear to be a solid effort. After all, his 6.990-second, 197.48 mph run was good enough to temporarily place the CENTURY 21( Firebird tenth with three sessions remaining on Friday and Saturday. Even so, after posting a string of 6.8-second attempts in testing a week ago, it was clear the Martino camp was looking for more. However, after inspecting their car in the pits, they were encouraged to find their problem had a simple solution.

"We ran the wrong rear end ratio," explained Martino. "As a result, it threw the whole run off. If you have too much gear, it translates into too much clutch, which also makes it spin the tires excessively, which in turn won't let the car run the last 300 feet. I don't know how fast it would have went, but it certainly would have been better than a 6.99.

"The good news is that it's an easy fix. We'll change things out tonight, and have our CENTURY 21 Firebird ready to come back tomorrow and move up."