|
 |
Romine
Racing News
See our Gallery for photos and our schedule to find where
we race next.
One.
That’s all it takes to get a baseline. In their third national event of the 2002 season, Mike Romine and new crew chief Rex Harris finally got one. It was a doozie.
Finally Romine’s in the ‘fifties.’ (The Screamin’ Eagle Nitro Harley guys fondly call the elapsed times representing 6.500-6.5999 seconds it takes to get through the 1320 feet of racing surface. Romine got one and joked, “It only took, what, two months to get one good one?” While he was at it, he ripped off a 223.47 miles per hour number, too.
The ‘fifty’ was Romine’s third pass of the weekend. Friday’s qualifying was dropped to one round due to weather. Romine could have skipped it. “The bike just, well really, I don’t know what happened. It just shut off. When I hit the throttle to leave it seemed to fire just on one cylinder. Then it popped and banged then just quit at the top end.”
Saturday morning wasn’t much better. “This morning it was blubbering through the quarter-mile.” Romine clocked a 12.147. “We took it all apart after the first round today and checked everything over. When we did, we found a few things here and there. We really didn’t change that much from the run Friday and today. We just didn’t spin the tire and we found a couple of things.”
Romine wasn’t high miles per hour of the day, but he was right behind the reigning champion and that’s something.
Smiling, Romine reflect the team mood. “That’s the best we’ve been this year. We left the line. It didn’t spin the tire. It didn’t shut off. We made it all the way to the end. That’s the first full pass we’ve made this season.” But that’s just the first half of the event.
Romine runs Mark Cox in round one Sunday. “My lights have not been good but we’ve had so much trouble that I haven’t been able to go up there and concentrate. I need to get a good night’s sleep and get ready for tomorrow. Sharpen up.” His qualifying lead is seven thousandths of a second. “Tomorrow, we just need one full run, at a time.”
Mike Romine is sponsored by Chromatic, Andrews Products, Saddlemen, Autolite, Silkolene and Romine Racing.
|
|
