True Grit Showing at Season Finale 

Todd Lesenko’s final drag racing event appearance of the season came during NHRA’s season-ending AAA Auto Club Finals at Pomona California.  

Unfortunately for Todd and the entire Jim Dunn Racing team that effort again proved to be memorable – but mostly for the wrong reasons. 

For the 3^rd time this season Todd suffered a massive engine explosion and Funny Car body jettison – and this one might have been the most violent.  

The wild incident came during the third qualifying session early on Saturday afternoon when the engine failed at about ¾ track sending the Tap It Brewing Chevy body high into air in front of a jam-packed standing room only crowd of spectators.   Todd did a truly masterful job in collecting the now barren car chassis which pitched violently a number of times.   Incredibly — the car never did make contact with the guardwalls at any point.  

According to the crew, this incident was traced back to a faulty (leaking) fuel line which caused the engine to lean out unexpectedly resulting in the motor detonation and consequences.   

Most importantly Todd was not injured in the incident which once again because of it’s “over the top” spectacular nature — made world wide Motorsports highlight reels. 

In a true testament to their resolve – the Jim Dunn Racing team did make an engine change and then installed their Dodge Stratus back up body in time for the 4^th and final qualifying session later that afternoon. 

Unfortunately all that hard work did not result in a qualifying position and their best weekend effort of 4.787 secs fell short of the super swift 4.112 secs bump spot. 

Todd Lesenko offers his congratulations to eventual AAA Auto Club Finals FC event winner Cruz Pedregon and also to Jack Beckman who claimed the overall NHRA Full Throttle Series FC Championship on Sunday…..(BB)

Photos by:  Bruce Biegler and Roger Richards 

For more images from the NHRA’s Pomona Finals event visit the Photo Gallery:  HERE