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Romine
Racing News
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Improving incremental numbers every round and performing his personal best on the new Nuclear Tomato, Mike Romine was surprised to be loading the bike in the trailer after the first round at Cordova Dragway Park.
'I wish I had been sharper on the tree,' lamented Mike Romine after round one. 'I went up there thinking I was concentrating good. My competitor had a history of a .450 or .460 lights pretty consistently. I thought that I was going to outrun him. I just needed a good light. Right now, there aren't many bikes out there that can out run us.' But they did. Romine had low elapsed time of the round and the day at a 6.59 in the heat of the day. He thought he'd won the first round of eliminations at Cordova Dragway Park. 'I didn't even think it was really close. I realize I was holeshotted. I thought I'd passed him before the finish line but obviously I didn't. I didn't judge my distance properly.'
Romine held #1 qualifier at the end of the second round, which was his best Nuclear Tomato run at an IHRA event at a 6.552 elapsed time. High miles per our of the meet was set on that same run by Romine at his personal best 218.44, faster than the current IHRA record. He was bumped to second qualifier in the final round.
When it came to eliminations, Romine earned low e.t. for raceday, though it didn't help him win. 'I need to go buy a practice tree. Actually, not trying to make excuses, I really did think I crossed the finish line first. At the shutdown, I came around the corner. The TV crew started walking towards me then stopped and talked to Jay. I though to myself, I wonder why they're talking to Jay. He looked like the most surprised man on the facility.'
Though he was a spectator for IHRA's Night of Fire at Cordova, Romine was still up beat. 'That's pretty encouraging numbers in the conditions we ran in today. We have a good tune up for hot air. Last night we tried to go for the miles per hour record to try to repeat the 218. The bike ran 209 something and nosed over right before the finish line. It was a good solid run. Today in the heat with the same tune-up, it's probably 15 degrees hotter, it ran 211 miles per hour. We're making very, very small changes with the clutch and very, very small changes with the fuel system. It's starting to come around. We're still about a tenth off of our best eighth mile from our best run on the Flyin' Banana. If we can get that tenth back, the best at Richmond and Rockingham was a 4.18, would get us to a 6.49. In the eighth-mile we're a little slow. Not terrible, just a little slow.'
Romine now holds the sixth position in the IHRA points series.
Mike Romine is sponsored by Chromatic, Andrews Products, Saddlemen and Romine Racing.
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