{"id":3716,"date":"2019-06-06T12:42:32","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T12:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3716"},"modified":"2019-06-06T13:59:31","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T13:59:31","slug":"jeff-heads-to-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3716","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Heads to Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Canadian drag racing favourite transplants did a terrific job as a substitute driver last weekend during the NHRA Route 66 Nationals – near Chicago.<\/p>\n

For Jeff Arend, who is a native of Toronto, but who now resides with his wife Windy & daughter Jenna in La Verne CA., his reputation precedes him. \u00a0 <\/span>During last weekend\u2019s event Jeff’s very inherent talents earned him the designated driver slot for Ohio\u2019s Jim Head as he did a stint driving that team\u2019s potent \u201cBig Show\u201d Ford Mustang.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Head was looking for a competent driver for that high profile annual race after his regular driver Jonnie Lindberg, who is from Sweden, was away travelling internationally.<\/p>\n

Head\u2019s first choice for that slot was Jeff Arend \u2014 knowing well that it is anything but easy for a driver to simply jump into an unfamiliar race car.\u00a0 <\/span>But Head who\u2019s reputation is for being one of the most calculated people in the sport of drag racing also knew if anyone could do that \u2014 it would be Jeff Arend.\u00a0 <\/span>Jim Head\u2019s notion was soon proven to be correct.<\/p>\n

Despite being fitted into the Mustang only the day before the event and sitting in pretty unfamiliar territory \u2014 Jeff Arend coaxed the car to a pretty amazing run of 3.985 secs at 321.12 mph during his very first run down the Route 66 Raceway surface on Friday night.\u00a0 <\/span>Simply put \u2014 that is something that rarely happens in drag racing \u2014 especially within the unforgiving spectrum of fuel Funny Cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really all came together pretty fast,\u201d said Jeff Arend, who is employed at Frank Hawley\u2019s Drag Racing School.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI was at Boise Idaho racing Don Nelson\u2019s nitro Nostalgia car when Jim Head gave me a call.\u00a0 <\/span>The Chicago race was an open weekend for me \u2014 so we did the one race deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jim Head & Jeff Arend<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOn Thursday we fitted his chassis with my seat insert and I got to sit in the car for the first time,\u201d he added.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cOver the years I\u2019ve raced and seen a lot of Funny Cars \u2014 but Jim\u2019s car has a lot of things I\u2019ve never seen before and that I had to get used to quickly.\u00a0 <\/span>His car has some amazing aspects — you can sure tell he is an engineer – that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really pleased with the first run on Friday.\u00a0 <\/span>The Mustang body was easy to see out of and his team had the car set up beautifully \u2014 it ran straight and smooth.\u00a0 <\/span>That \u201c3\u201d was my first sub 4-seconds run since 2016 when I drove Alexis Dejoria\u2019s car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Arend\u2019s run Friday held up well and put him #13 entering Sunday\u2019s eliminations \u2014 where he also made an impact.\u00a0 <\/span>In round #1 he upset Shawn Langdon and then in the second round lost a pretty darn close tussle to heavily favoured Jack Beckman by a 3.962 secs 329.75 mph to 4.028 secs 317.49 mph count.<\/p>\n

While this race appearance for Jeff may prove to be singular at this point in time \u2014 his Chicago event effort was for sure attention resonating throughout the class.\u00a0 <\/span>It is just the latest entry for Jeff Arend\u2019s impressive resume \u2014 which has now seen him drive a very long series of both high and low profile Funny Cars during his career \u2014 and I expect it will not be his last.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Post and photos by Bruce Biegler\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Canadian drag racing favourite transplants did a terrific job as a substitute driver last weekend during the NHRA Route 66 Nationals – near Chicago. For Jeff Arend, who is a native of Toronto, but who now resides with his wife Windy & daughter Jenna in La Verne CA., his reputation precedes him. \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[62,80,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3728,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions\/3728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}