NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

The Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown record book got a rewrite Friday at the Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals presented by Mopar, when David H. Davies and Lee Hartman combined to produce the quickest and fastest performances in the history of the category.

Davies supplied the speed, blasting to 185.7 mph in the opening qualifying session before coming back in Q2 and raising the bar again to 186.10 mph.

“I set it in Q1 and reset it again in Q2,” Davies said. “We went 185.7 [mph], almost two mph faster, and then I decided, ‘Let’s round it up to 186.1.’ ”

Even better for Davies was the repeatability. In old-school record-setting terms, the second performance proved the first was no fluke. The performance was the culmination of months of work rather than a sudden Michigan breakthrough. Davies said his team has been developing the current combination since the Bristol event, with a transmission problem initially obscuring some of the progress.

“We had a problem with the transmission,” Davies said. “The performance that we had in Bristol masked that. We went to Norwalk with this combination but with a broken transmission. We fixed that, went to Indy, and we’ve been chasing this little tune-up with this new combination.”

Michigan provided the combination of favorable atmospheric conditions, a fast U.S. 131 racing surface and a familiar supercharger pulley combination that allowed Davies' Dodge to show its potential.

“This engine, this blower and this combination is basically what we ran in Gainesville and Charlotte,” Davies said. “We have a lot of data, which really helped us out. Plus, we’ve got really good weather here. We like 131. I’ve been down this track a thousand times.”

If Davies established how fast a Factory Stocker can run, Lee Hartman demonstrated how quickly one can cover the quarter-mile.

Hartman reset the Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown E.T. record and then followed the record-setting pass with another strong run, giving the team confidence that the performance wasn't simply the product of one exceptional trip down the racetrack. 

For Hartman, there was no single magic component behind the performance. But he credits the team"

“It's the Stanfield team, they are hard workers,” Hartman said when asked for the secret. “Relentlessly working on the car, trying to improve it every day, whether it’s at the shop, at the track, whatever it takes. They’re on it. We just never give up.”

Like Davies, Hartman pointed to NHRA's latest parity adjustment with a supercharger pulley change back to what they had at Gainesville, favorable Michigan weather and an excellent racing surface as ingredients in the performance.

“NHRA does a good job with parity over time,” Hartman said. “They regulate it and make sure the cars are equal. What happened today was great weather, great track, and we too often don’t see that.”

With only two qualifying opportunities before a compressed day of eliminations, there was little room for conservative runs.

“We did swing for it,” Hartman said.

The result was a remarkable opening statement for Factory Stock Showdown's Michigan weekend: two Dodges, one producing the quickest E.T. in class history and another recording its fastest speed. And when Hartman was asked what else needed to be said about the record-setting performance, his answer was considerably shorter than the time slip.

“One fast Dodge.”