A Super Solid Start!

Todd Lesenko and Chuck Worsham’s first race back together has produced very impressive results.

The team’s debut of the all new Canadiana-themed Dodge Charger raised a lot of attention from both media and performance perspectives during last weekend’s NHRA season-opening O’Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals at Pomona California.

Despite it being his very first time ever driving this new car – on Saturday Todd qualified #15 with a best run of 4.250 secs at 302.69 mph.   Then on Sunday he beat out defending NHRA World Champion Jack Beckman in a super exciting battle that saw both drivers battle tire spin.  Todd won that match by a 5.023 secs to 5.457 secs margin.

In round two, Lesenko then faced off against another DSR team car – the spectacular looking Dodge Charger driven by New Mexico’s Johnny Gray.   Todd was first off the starting line with a .047 RT and ran a career best 4.202 secs at 307.30 mph – however that was not quite quick enough to hold off Gray’s winning 4.038 secs.

Despite that loss in the 2^nd frame – Todd Lesenko and his entire racing team felt very gratified.

“This car is quite a bit different than anything I’ve driven before,” said Lesenko.  “It is a solid tube car and it steers differently.  The car also reacts very quickly to horsepower and because of all that tremendous increase in power it took a bit of getting use to over the first couple of runs.  We got the car tamed down and going into that last qualifier we all felt confident we were going to qualify – and that’s exactly what we did.”

“Overall for our new team to qualify at it’s very first race together and go to round two — is a very gratifying start to our season,” Todd continued.  “Our crew lead by Chuck Worsham and Grant Downing did a tremendous job turning the car around.  We had really no issues with parts all weekend — even the main bearings were reusable.  That tells you something about just how good the tune-up is.”

The team will now head off to Firebird Raceway at Phoenix for the 29^th NHRA Arizona Nationals next weekend.

Visit the team’s  event photo gallery:  HERE (Select 2013 – Pomona)

Photos and posting by:  Bruce Biegler