Vandergriff Shuts Down Team and Retires (2 Viewers)

[Rajunz]

I still insist the easiest way to limit performance and cost is to limit the capacity of the fuel tank. You could over a period of time reduce fuel tank size from 30+ gallons to 10 (?). This would eliminate to need for dual fuel pumps, large blowers etc. Make it evolutionary not revolutionary and spread the cost and change over 3-6 years. Teams could plan for it and it would be easily enforced.

You have to know what happens to a fuel car when you run them out of fuel?

 

[Ocean Racer]

I think this whole deal is VERY strange. After 20 years in racing, it's time to quit to spend more family time? Racing is very demanding and takes a lot of time from our families, that's for sure. BUT the timing of this
is very suspicious. With the death of Josh Comstock,isn't is possible that the company management doesn't have the interest in spending millions on drag racing? Maybe the death of Rob's good friend Josh Comstock
really did bother him enough to want to quit, I don't know. But what a shame for all the people that are suddenly left high and dry without a job because suddenly the team owner wants to spend more time with his family?
I think what really happened is the company cut off the funding because it's pretty damn inconsiderate to all those people on the team and the two drivers to can them right in the midst of the season!

I have never posted here before – watched the chatter for years but have some observations about this. Josh Comstock passed away suddenly at 46 - (look healthy at the last race when on TV on the starting line) cause of death remains "unknown" at this time but people have their suspicions when you are the CEO of a public company and your stock has a 52 week high of 18 and is trading at $1.55 last Friday it raises logical questions about this. Google Aubrey McClendon, Chesepeak Energy - similar fact set and also no longer with us.

As an outsider it appears that Comstock is the only reason that the C&J deal happened for Vandergriff in the 1st place and it was a what I refer to as a "personal affinity" sponsorship as so many of these teams seem to exist on these days (or at least partially exist on). Clearly he personally appeared to love Drag Racing, and I suspect it would be difficult to determine how many clients C&J signed because of the Drag Racing sponsorship (which is supposed to be the essence and benchmark for sponsorship in the first place I think). These personal affinity sponsorships appear to keep the professional category's of NHRA racing in reality or at least keep the fields full ..... seems to be very little "real-arms length" sponsorship dollars flowing (and almost 100% of it seems to go to Schumacher and Force) and certainly not enough to keep the fields full, or the cars that are running being able to continue to run at the level they are running if the "affinity money" was taken away. As I see it’s the reality of other teams that are existing (either entirely or in significant part) only because of these types of deals:

Funny Car:
Dejoria
Wilkerson
Worshom
Chad Head
Tommy Johnson Jr
Jack Beckman

Top Fuel:
Doug Kalitta
JR Todd
Steve Torrance
Billy Torrence
Morgan Lucas Morgan
Richie Crampton

And many of the Pro Stock teams (i.e Anderson & Line - Ken Black) to name one, there are many others.

That is not to say we don’t see names on the sides of those cars and that sponsor dollars are not flowing those cars, but as we have heard many crew chiefs, drivers and commentators say over an over without the “support of Connie Kalitta, Terry Chandler, Dick Levi, Forrest Lucas, etc, etc, etc" these teams would either not be racing at all, or racing at a very diluted performance level from where they are today”.

The primary difference with the Listed group and Josh Comstock is that Comstock was spending Stockholder money (I assume this – I don’t know it’s just my logical conclusion) from a public company (ticker symbol CJES on NASDEQ), not his own money, or funds from a private company like the others listed (Kalitta, Patron etc). When you are throwing away $5 to $6 million year of stockholder money on hobby racing and the company has essentially wiped out 100% of the shareholder equity in the last 12 months of operations you are going to have some vary angry shareholders on the quarterly conference all and no way to justify continuing unless you can draw straight and bright lines to "drag racing sponsorship = more business for C&J Energy. With Comstock gone I suspect the management team at CJES simply could not make a prudent case to continue the deal.

Public companies owe their 1st responsibility to shareholders, not race teams. This differs from the list of “affinity sponsors" - I could only imagine what would happen to the CFO of Kalitta Air if he walked into Connie's office and said "I think we are spending way too much money on this drag racing hobby of yours, we should shut it down".... I think that person, best case, would be looking for work the next day, or worst case (knowing Connie’s well publicized persona) would be picking their teeth up off the ground and heading to the dentist for surgery.

As for Vandergriff, he seemed to be a top notch operator and the teams seemed very well managed with talent that really gelled and came into its own under his leadership. And obviously he has the ability to be compelling in his marketing, I remember 2 funny cars with Fruit of the Loom on them (him and Spurlock) and that was a huge deal at the time and if I remember correctly he as the primary reason that deal happened.

His (Vandergriffs) public statement as to why he was shuttering 2 Pro teams down in a day "I want to spend more time with my Family".... only he knows the real story but for someone who committed a large portion of his life to drag racing it would seem to make sense that if the funds were still flowing, the cars would still be running.

I did appreciate the Alan Johnson public statements when he shut down the two Al Anabi teams suddenly - he was up-front "unfortunately we had our funding taken away unexpectedly and I am not going to file a lawsuit against the Country of Qatar over it".....

As for the drivers, (again as an outsider just making observations) Leah is more marketable but inexperienced (and improving all the time), and Connely cut's consistantly good lights which puts him in the mix. As for the crews, I think this type of situation is unfortunate, but not unusual these days in the sport. Mike Gouger has come into his own as a fuel crew chief and I suspect will have no problem finding work.

The only up side is that this opens the door for some independent teams to make the show which does make it interesting in qualifying and eliminations.

 

[Muddy]

re

You have to know what happens to a fuel car when you run them out of fuel?

Having ran a fuel car for several years I have a very good picture of what happens. A thirsty motor is very unhappy.
Your missing the point that everyone would have to make adjustments to the decrease in available fuel. Before very long they would be single fuel pumps, perhaps single mags, smaller blowers. Not like we did back in the day but somewhere in between. The best part about it is each CC could develop their own solution to the decrease in fuel. Because of the lack of large amounts of fuel you wouldn't be able to run your car as hard as today. After an adjustment period there should be less parts breakage and parts should last longer.

BTW Most all other forms of racing limits the amount of fuel that can be used.

 

[Rajunz]

Smaller intake valves would accomplish exactly what you described, without such a potentially disastrous learning curve.

 

[Muddy]

Probably so. I would think they would just turn the blower faster and increase manifold pressure or increase compression and put a bit more advance in the mag but all my thoughts are based on experience so old Moses was a crew chief in training. .

 

[Nitrohelper]

........all my thoughts are based on experience so old Moses was a crew chief.....

The current equipment ,data acquisition abilities, and rule limitations make "old school" tune-up concepts very obsolete...

Blower speed is limited, nitro percentage is restricted and they take timing away to run quicker...
The current amount of cylinder pressure is bending the side bolts in the blocks and scrapping cranks after six runs...

The advances in blower technology and CFM flow (not boost) are two of the major reasons for the horsepower growth increments during the last 15 years ...

A 2.250 intake valve would limit the valve bending that is currently helping to blow the blowers off...
Reducing the blower overdrive limit from 50 to 25% would reduce the cylinder pressure problems...
Those are two minor changes that would not require purchasing different parts for all the engines...

Nitro at 90% doesn't like much higher static compression than they are currently running -
they now change head gaskets by.002 to tune for the corrected altitude and water grains...

For successful "suck,squeeze,bang,blow", a ratio of fuel-air-spark is needed - just change one at a time...

Opinions are like assholes everybody has them - mine are from an "old school" tuner with modern knowledge...

 

[flapjack]

The current equipment ,data acquisition abilities, and rule limitations make "old school" tune-up concepts very obsolete...

Blower speed is limited, nitro percentage is restricted and they take timing away to run quicker...
The current amount of cylinder pressure is bending the side bolts in the blocks and scrapping cranks after six runs...

The advances in blower technology and CFM flow (not boost) are two of the major reasons for the horsepower growth increments during the last 15 years ...

A 2.250 intake valve would limit the valve bending that is currently helping to blow the blowers off...
Reducing the blower overdrive limit from 50 to 25% would reduce the cylinder pressure problems...
Those are two minor changes that would not require purchasing different parts for all the engines...

Nitro at 90% doesn't like much higher static compression than they are currently running -
they now change head gaskets by.002 to tune for the corrected altitude and water grains...

For successful "suck,squeeze,bang,blow", a ratio of fuel-air-spark is needed - just change one at a time...

Opinions are like assholes everybody has them - mine are from an "old school" tuner with modern knowledge...

You mention CFM, so I am curious as to how cam timing plays into this. Not saying that is one area to focus on - it's just curiosity on my part

 

[Nitrohelper]

Tom Kacvinsky, ...........how cam timing plays into this...........

Slightly more duration from years ago, (298>303 @.050) - the big change is in the quality of valve springs,
permitting more lift than 20+ years ago and stronger rocker arms on the exhaust that allow it to
open earlier against the cylinder pressure...

 

[Mooseman]

Yip and then you snap an exhaust rocker and proceed to send your entire blower system into orbit.

 

[Race Fan]

"Jerry Newman, post: 354606, member: 126"]The current equipment ,data acquisition abilities, and rule limitations make "old school" tune-up concepts very obsolete...

Blower speed is limited, nitro percentage is restricted and they take timing away to run quicker...
The current amount of cylinder pressure is bending the side bolts in the blocks and scrapping cranks after six runs...

The advances in blower technology and CFM flow (not boost) are two of the major reasons for the horsepower growth increments during the last 15 years ...

A 2.250 intake valve would limit the valve bending that is currently helping to blow the blowers off...
Reducing the blower overdrive limit from 50 to 25% would reduce the cylinder pressure problems...
Those are two minor changes that would not require purchasing different parts for all the engines...

Nitro at 90% doesn't like much higher static compression than they are currently running -
they now change head gaskets by.002 to tune for the corrected altitude and water grains...

For successful "suck,squeeze,bang,blow", a ratio of fuel-air-spark is needed - just change one at a time...

Opinions are like assholes everybody has them - mine are from an "old school" tuner with modern knowledge.."


You should write in this forum more often.

 

[Muddy]

The current equipment ,data acquisition abilities, and rule limitations make "old school" tune-up concepts very obsolete...

Blower speed is limited, nitro percentage is restricted and the.....................................................

- mine are from an "old school" tuner with modern knowledge...

I bow to a lot more knowledge than I have. Thanks for the lesson.

 

[Nitrohelper]

"Jerry Newman, post: 354606, member: 126"]
.......You should write in this forum more often........

Thank you for that -
I did post more during the past years ,but like many other Nitro burners that quit posting
because of getting challenged by keyboard tuners with all their knowledge from TV ,or "what they've heard"
I get tired of reading folks that don't have a clue ,but think they're experts...