|
 |
Romine
Racing News
See our Gallery for photos and our schedule to find where
we race next.
Mike Romine, pleased with his number one qualifying position, prepares to run eliminations in Arizona.
A 7.05 Pro Fuel #1 qualifier on the Flyin’ Banana in Arizona keeps Romine smiling on the drive home to Michigan after a semi-final finish. “We never made a full pass on the bike, but we had a brand new fuel system to contend with.” Their first round bye run came in handy when Romine clocked a 7.82 and the bike shut off. “It started spinning the tire in the middle of the track so I coasted, not wanting to blow anything up.” The bike was just lazy in the second round, turning a 7.22 to be defeated by three hundredths. “We didn't have a handle on the tune-up we needed with the new system. Unfortunately, we never got a good enough run to get a decent miles per hour.”
Mike Romine aboard the Nuclear Tomato in Arizona.
Romine’s main passion, the Nuclear Tomato, fought dehydration in the Arizona sun. Patty Romine, team manger, revealed that the team had their hands full running two bikes with dramatically different set-ups than they’d run before. “We were just struggling with the two bikes. In addition, it was a trick track, which was hard to get a handle on. Each lane seemed to have bad spots in it at different distances. We just had to try differnt things and never could get the combination right. We got close once and ran the 6.83 then the next pass we smoked the tire.”
Round one eliminations was a victory for Romine on the Nuclear Tomato, but it wasn’t spectacular. “He didn't run real well but we got by him. We ran a 7.12. He ran a 7.83.
We’d run a 7.01 in the last round of qualiyfing on Saturday. But it just shut off on the 7.12. The fuel system isn't quite the way we want it. We went back after round one and Rex tried something different. Then we ran the 6.83 in the second round. We thought we had a handle on it them. Where we needed it, in the semi-final, we ran a 12.24, smoking the tire off of the line. So we say the same thing many others have said, ‘If we could have just repeated.’” Romine had a .470 reaction time that round, doing everything he needed to do. The combination needed work.
The team fired the Nuclear Tomato for the more than 7,000 people in attendance of the official Kick Start Party of the AHDRA Arizona Bike Week Nationals at Hacienda Harley-Davidson.
After the two dramatically different days in the desert, Romine’s glad to be going home to Michigan to prepare for IHRA Richmond. “We’ll take everything apart and analyze the data we gathered to get ready. We've had a good vacation with Mike’s brother Jack and family. We had some R&R for a few days before the race. We’re refreshed and ready to go.”
Mike Romine’s Nuclear Tomato is sponsored by Chromatic, Andrews Products, Saddlemen, Autolite and Romine Racing. The Flyin’ Banana is sponsored by Competition Dist.
|
|
