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Romine
Racing News
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Mike Romine still races the Chromatic Nuclear Tomato in quest for the IHRA Screamin’ Eagle Nitro Harley. But the rules have changed for the team. At this, the half-way mark to the championship season, Romine’s team self-imposed new rules to ease the tension.
Rule #1 - No Bicycle Riding.
The 2002 new crew chief Rex Harris, dubbed ‘The Wizard’ by fellow Nitro Harley competitors, has a broken collar-bone. No, it wasn’t a motorcycle or racing related accident. Between Canada and New York, Harris had a little down time and went home to Alabama to enjoy the holiday. While entertaining nieces and nephews demonstrating bicycle stunts, he crashed and burned. Even getting his e-mail hurts.
Rule #2 - Everything is Patty’s fault.
Friday qualifying wasn’t pretty or impressive for the Romine team. Romine didn’t make the first pass due to equipment failure. “The clutch got fully engaged immediately when we started the bike. We couldn’t make it disnengenage enough to do the burnout so we had to shut it off. No run in the heat of the day, the time when we’ll run first round eliminations. It was a hydraulic valve in the clutch. The seat in it was leaking, letting the fluid pass by. Now we have a new thing to check between rounds.” When there’s no one to blame, Patty takes the blame because that’s Patty. The buck stops there. Also, see rule #3.
Rule #3 - Start bike early.
If you were watching the Nitro Harley pits that first round Friday, the Romine pit are was practically entertainment for those who like to sit and watch people working. The Romine team worked, preparing to go for it after losing a shot at the track. When qualifying time rolled around, they fired the bike and it needed a few adjustments. Enough to make them ‘scramble’ to the staging area for the round. Remember this: Romine’s don’t scramble. And even though he went out and ran a 6.714 at 196.72, Romine scowled. New rule in order.
The good news is that Romine is safely qualified with a 6.70-something run. The bad news is that for Saturday’s noon round, Harris went for it a bit aggressively with the multi-stage fuel system. Romine’s bike dropped a cylinder in less than two seconds, rendering yet another daytime pass ineffective.
“The problem that we have to deal with now this weekend, is first round of eliminations at noon and we haven’t run well on either mid-day session. We ran fair Friday night, but that tells us nothing about Sunday. The first and third rounds matter the most for competition. So now we have to focus on qualifying at the top for a soft first round competition. If we run really well tonight we’ll be happy but it doesn’t help us Sunday for clutch set-up. It was still hot last night, so we just fixed the problem with the valve and went out and ran it. It wasn’t as hot as it was at noon so the bike was kind of lazy.”
As Romine always says, anyone who qualifies can win. “Here, you could run a 6.50 and lose. So I’m thinking about the bike. This racetrack is good enough to run 6.50’s. A couple of them are already there. We will see 6.40’s tonight. Hopefully, that’ll include us.”
Sanctioning body rules. Team rules. Citizen rules. Guidelines everywhere. But the Romine team smiles throughout. After all, for Nitro and Harley enthusiasts, it doesn’t get any better than this.
Mike Romine’s Nuclear Tomato is sponsored by Chromatic, Andrews Products, Ross Pistons, Saddlemen, Autolite, Silkolene and Romine Racing.
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