|
 |
Romine
Racing News
See our Gallery for photos and our schedule to find where
we race next.
Mike Romine’s Nuclear Tomato was ripe for the picking. In the middle of Sunday eliminations, the Tomato was the quickest bike of four remaining for semi-final action. Mother Nature even watered generously for the all-important round. But at 12:20 a.m. Monday, the rain won. AHDRA cut the pie into four quarters. Romine will never be able to say “that was my day” as he thought it would be.
Saturday’s qualifying left the RMC team sitting pretty but not perfect. Team leader Mike Romine was 5th with a 6.657. Drums Brancaccio landed 6th with a 6.736. The Jack Attack, Jack Romine, was 12th with a 6.855.
Mike began Saturday lighting the scoreboard with a 6.666 at 214.04 and the crowd roared. But the taller Romine wasn’t impressed. “I had a 1.19 60-foot time and that’s terrible. It ran good on the top end. But it didn't leave the starting line well. To run 6.66 with those early numbers is probably a real good run, but it could run a whole lot better. We're giving up nearly at tenth in the 60 foot area.”
Round two wasn’t better, but it was faster, during the heat of the day. He ran 6.6587 at 219.61. But the last pass was interesting and the team got good information to use on Sunday. “I changed a couple of little things and didn’t figure that it was that big of a change. We put more fuel in it tonight because of the air. We figured it would be a lot better. I should have just put fuel it in early in the run and left the top end alone. The bike was kind of telling me in the burnout that it might shut off. That’s why I had to do two burnouts. On the run, it shut off at 6.0 seconds, 214 miles per hour.” Compare that to Romine’s under power first round and you know he was moving onto a great run when it shut off. “Still, it was a good pass at 6.684 at 208.52 miles per hour.”
Round one was good but not too good for RMC’s Drums Brancaccio with a 6.906 at 192.88 miles per hour. “We're pleased to get out and run decent off of the bat. The bike left good. It's soft a little bit on the bottom. But top end was fat and it nosed over real early. The air is terrible and it's gonna get worse.”
It did, in fact, get worse for Drums in round two, but it wasn’t the air. “I believe my motorcycle had broken one of the cannon lines for the clutch and spewed out some fluid under my tire. That caused such a bad run in the left lane.” He ran a disappointing 10.72.
By the end of the day, Drums was having the time of his life. He clocked his personal best High Gear bike pass at the end of Saturday qualifying with a 6.736, 209.20 miles per hour. “That’s not a bad run, 6.73 in high gear,” said Romine. “That’s the best I’ve run with the Jackshaft so I’m extremely happy,” said Drums. “Mike makes the right tuning calls every time. He’s been phenomenal tuning my bike. He, Jack and I did the bottom end before that round and it worked. It ran close to 210 miles per hour so we have something to work with. It fell off a little bit on the bottom but Mike will look at it and pick that up. It was a nice, straight run and you know how the good runs are; they don’t feel like nothing. I knew it had to be going fast because it took me a while to slow down. Other than that, it was business as usual.”
Jack Romine began Saturday with a 7.063 at 159.08 miles per hour – substandard for the RMC team. “First round I was on a pretty decent pass and it went fat before it got on the last timer,” Jack explained. “Jack was much better at the launch than me,” said Mike. “He had a 1.1360 foot and ran good till just before the 1/8th mile where his bike went fat.”
“Jack had been smoking the tire at Budd’s Creek, so we did some work on the clutch and are kind of experimenting with it. He hasn’t really run real well today because his clutch is messed up from being so soft just trying to get it down the track with the tire smoke. Earlier this year we had it running really good. I expect we’re probably gonna put Jack’s bike back the way it was.”
For round two, they did put the bike back. “We got up there and started missing and popping and banging so we shut it off. We came back and went through the while bike and didn’t find anything obvious. We changed a bunch of electrical components. In the third round we ran 6.85 at 205 which was OK. We’re not sure, but we think we might have a hurt cylinder.” Jack was back in range, but not confident, yet.
The qualifying order created a pairing of brother versus brother in round one. Mike has lane choice against Jack. “He’ll probably run 6.60 something tomorrow. I’ll probably run 6.50 something and beat him,” said Mike. “Here we go again, Mom.”
“I think I’d better run better than a 6.85. I guess we need to run a 6.50 since Mike thinks he’ll run a 6.50,” Jack added. “But I’ll have the better light.”
Sunday, the brothers raced knowing one RMC bike would definitely be loaded in the trailer. “Jack had me whooped,” said Mike. “Until his bike shut off. I had a little bit better reaction time. Very little - .008. By the sixty-foot mark, he’d already made it up - 1.116 to my 1.192. He would have won. He was ahead at the 1/8th mile. But I had a good run. 6.66 in that heat was the second quickest run of the round. I believe Jack would have been quicker than that. His timers didn't work. Well, they worked - just not when they were set to go off. We believe they’re a little temperature sensitive. Since they were set last night, the error cost us.”
Jack smiled as he lamented the lesson. “We really didn't get a whole lot of information Saturday due to the trouble we had. So we went back to a combination that we were running at Dallas with similar track conditions. We used the combination here in Bristol that we’d have used in Dallas the round after I beat Mike, if I’d beaten him. It worked and I was out in front of Mike by a bike length. I had the best numbers of the weekend of anyone on the team but at 3.8 seconds into the run the bike shutoff. The curly haired brother went on to the finish line. Hopefully we don't struggle with the stupid stuff at the rest of the races.”
Drums ran Chromatic-sponsored Steve Moore in round one. “I really like Steve, but he has been running one of the RMC team members in round one at almost every race. It’s OK with me that he calls me Drums Romine. He’s earned it. I just plan on kicking his butt.”
“I thought we would both run well but we both fell off a real lot. It was a real close race to the 1000 feet then I walked away from him. He's always a top notch competitor, safe and a great sportsman.”
Round two, Drums ran Mark Conner, on a bike which Drums will race in Maple Grove next weekend. “I knew he was really trying to learn something on that bike. I knew DJ would tell Mark ‘don't stage. Drums will go in first and it would be a staging battle.’ So I went in. I felt pretty good. I got a light on him. He's an excellent driver. It was side by side right to 1300 feet where he just got me. I don't think he got me by two feet. I commend him for riding him so well and having a great time running him. I thought that we'd have mine perked up a little better. It's been throwing us a couple of curves. There are a few bugs we’re working out. But I had a great time racing here in Bristol. At the end of the track it was ‘great run buddy.’ We were right next to each other. My bike went fat a little bit. He went a little quicker and faster.”
Having sat in the number three qualifying spot most of Saturday, Mark Cox slipped around Mike Romine in the final round Saturday. “We lost to Mark at Budd’s Creek.” They paired in round two of eliminations. Romine had lane choice. “Having tire spin problems plague us this summer, I noticed that it hadn’t spun the tire on the 6.666 pass, so we put it back. The bike went right down through the lane at 6.58, 213 miles per hour. The track was pretty darned good after that rain, I thought. We were pleased that it was the best run of the round. That, and we’re even on Cox.”
Small tuning and decision victories were the only prizes at Bristol. The pot-o-gold split four ways for the semi-finalists left the RMC team wanting more. The team will take off one weekend then travel to the AHDRA Nationals in Topeka, Kansas August 23 & 24. The following Thursday and Friday they’ll all display and exhibition at the Harley-Davidson 100th Anniversary party. August 30 & 31, the RMC Team will race at the AMRA Union Grove, Wisconsin event celebrating the 100th. With two weekends off to refresh, a five-race series begins September 20th through the season’s end.
Mike Romine, Jack Romine and Drums Brancaccio are sponsored by RMC Racing, Romine Racing, Oceans 11 sports bar in Hollywood, FL, Chromatic Inc, Performance Machine, Ross Racing Pistons, Fram, and Autolite.
|
|
