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After a successful and addictive 2005 season in Sport FWD racing action, Joe Simpson has taken the off season to develop a new program of racing for the 2006 season. Campaigning on a budget without a long list of sponsors, Simpson has relied on his own ingenuity, driving skills and aspirations to succeed in the extremely competitive Sport FWD class. While many will remember Simpson campaigning a Civic Coupe in last year's season, his debut for the 2006 NHRA Sport Compact Racing season at Virginia saw him in an EG hatchback. Literally putting together a car last minute with the help of his new sponsors, Simpson decided to have some fun racing for the weekend while he continued working on his Coupe: "I decided to put a car together just to go racing and have some fun. I needed a bunch of parts though to put this car together and Eric @ Hybrid Performance had everything I needed and got it to me in a great timely manner."
With heavy rain in the forecast, the racers would have to be stuck with only one round of qualifying into Sunday's event. Qualifying fourth in a seven car field with a 11.140 @ 130.96mph, Simpson was quite content with the qualifying pass. First round of eliminations would pit Simpson against Dan Driskill who qualified in the seventh position. With a great reaction time of .044, Simpson was able to overpower Driskill with a 11.505 @ 125.39mph to Driskill's 13.205 @ 107.83mph. Round two would line Simpson up against one of Sport FWD's most competitive drivers, John Ferguson. Tranmission problems would arise in Ferguson's car, letting Simpson drive into the finals with an impressive 10.891 @ 134.94mph.
For Simpson, the weekend had already been a success. For putting together a car in just a few days and running into the 10s, Simpson gathered himself a good amount of data for his competition Coupe. The finals wouldn't let up however, as Simpson was going to give number one qualifier, Mat Keller, everything he had. With nearly identical reaction times of 0.051 (Keller) vs. 0.050 (Simpson), the run came down to the very end when Keller would get the win light with a 10.721 @ 146.86mph vs. Simpson's slightly slower 10.758 @ 133.53mph. One of the closest side by side action racing Sport FWD has ever seen, Simpson and Keller produced quite the race that'll be shown on ESPN2!
Above were some work in progress photos for Joe Simpson's Sport FWD Coupe. His debut at the NHRA Englishtown event would prove to be a great one. After qualifying in the fourth spot with a 10.181 @ 140.08mph, Simpson was ready to compete with the new Coupe, despite having the boost controller turned off: "I decided to run only 15psi this past weekend to work on the car's 60 foots. I basically had no boost controller and ran wastegate spring pressure. I was very pleased with the results." Still dialing in the car and tuning in between rounds, Simpson was eager to gather data from this event to help on the remainder of the season. First round eliminations would pit Simpson against Mike Williamson. A little eager on the tree, Williamson redlit handing Simpson the automatic win. A 10.445 @ 123.89mph pass still ensued, gathering some data but not pushing the car to its limits. Round two would serve as another easy win as Dan Back left way too soon. The second round win would give Simpson a bye to another career final round.
Electing to take it easy in round three on the bye run, Simpson would once again line up against Team Clutch Master's Mat Keller and his Sport FWD Integra. Knowing that Keller was running strong all day long, and having a broken fourth gear from the third qualifying pass, Simpson took a hard stab at the tree but unfortunately redlit. A 10 second pass still ensued, but Simpson backed off way before the finish line. Overall the weekend was a huge success for Simpson's new Coupe. Gathering plenty of data to bring into the next event, Simpson looks forward to having a 9 second contender very soon! |
