My 22 days before Indy

[Jim D'Amore]

As the title of the thread states, 22 days before Indy I was notified by the head of NHRA tech that the pistons for the 302/350 HP NA Cobra Jet combinations (which have been on the approved product list for the past 4 years) must be changed. Two weeks prior to that they changed all the cylinder head casting numbers around, deleting some and adding others...at that time it made half of the motor legal and half illegal
Still to this day I don't understand. The 2013 350 HP NA Cobra Jet only came with 1 style cylinder head. That means 1 part number for the left and one for the right! I have been threatened, harassed, and criticized since Gainesville by the Michigan Mafia. Mike Pustelny, Charley Downing, and the self-proclaimed "God father of the Cobra Jet" Jim Ronzello. The self-proclaimed God father who was never once on Ford's payroll for the Cobra Jet program. For someone who wasn't in the actual program, he sure does have a massive amount of Cobra Jet parts and BIW car's in his garage. Maybe that is why Mike Dellihanti is no longer with Ford Performance

After showing up to Indy with my New Pistons and Out of the box Cylinder heads we started to make head way on getting the car down the track. On the 3rd run we wound up going 9.38. With what I had left in the tune up and RPM launch change I figured it would go in the 20's. That is when we were told the motor was sealed and that the next morning we would have to bring the car to the tear down barn and pull a piston. This was the 3rd complete tear down we faced in the same year. Even though I could have turned it up and run faster it still wouldn't have been good enough to win class in FS/C. I jumped 2 classes to stay away from the Michigan Mafia, because of all their threats leading up to this race and at the event. One of them was in E and the other in D. So we decided to race in C. I should have added 300lbs to the car and ran E because that would have put us in the 9.60's. The fastest E car was going 9.94.

I guess the moral behind this story is if other competitors don't work on their ***** and make it fast that you aren't allowed to do it either. So as I am following Wesley to the big NHRA tech trailer to get the certified scale to weigh my piston and rod as I stepped inside, sitting right on the tech director's desk where the computer was I saw a hero card and it made me understand why I was there...That is when I was also told there was numerous phone calls and emails from the Michigan Mafia to tear me down for the 3rd time this year. So I took a picture with my Rod and Piston in front of the hero card. Gotta love it!