Championship Drag Racing

Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals
Brainerd, MN
(August 10-13)

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Driver Profile

Ryan Schnitz Trim-Tex/Team Muzzy Kawasaki

Brainerd, Sunday: Things seemed to be going in the wrong direction for Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Ryan Schnitz. In the second day of qualifying for the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd, Minnesota, Schnitz's Trim-Tex/Muzzy's Buell dropped two spots to 11th. The chain broke in Q3 and his Q4 pass was just plain slow.
 
qualifying round 3
11th     Ryan Schnitz     right lane     8.939 at 98.95 mph
 
qualifying round 4
11th     Ryan Schnitz     left lane       7.347 at 175.87 mph
     qualifying best of 7.168
 
"On our final qualifying attempt we ran slow," said Schnitz. "We had an excessive amount of fuel pressure and the thing was really, really rich. So we went back to a low pressure system. When we leaked the motor down we found some air going past the piston rings, so we put our motor 'Friday' in overnight. We basically made a lot of Hail Mary passes, and it almost bit us."
 
eliminations round 1
(W)     Ryan Schnitz        .053          12.313 at 67.22 mph
           Angelle Sampey   .008          disqualified for weight
 
"We ran first round and the bike was skipping and burbling down the track. We chalked it up as a loss and Tech came by with 10 or 15 minutes left before second round and said 'You're back in!' Angelle didn't make weight. We had about half our stuff packed up. We changed a couple of things and when we got up to the staging lanes it started sprinkling a little bit. We went back to the trailer to try and change some stuff, but the sun came right back out and we had to run back up there. We were not even sure if the bike would run or not, but it started and did the burnout OK. Karen pushed the tree and redlit and our bike ran about like it did first round."
 
eliminations round 2
(W)     Ryan Schnitz      .015          22.260 at 30.80 mph
           Karen Stoffer     -.001(R)     7.168 at 187.76 mph
 
"So we rushed back after the scales and tech and changed the whole fuel injection system. Went back to an older S&S system and we couldn't get the wiring harness to work. Rick Maney from G2 said 'Why don't we use this new harness and we'll just leave these two plugs unplugged.' Rick and Chip Ellis and all the S&S guys were over helping us to get down the racetrack, so I wanna thank them for that.
 
"We get back up to the line just as the last pair of Pro Stock cars were going down the track. Steve Johnson was already in the water box."
 
eliminations round 3
(W)     Steve Johnson   .061     7.173 at 186.77 mph
           Ryan Schnitz     .033     7.381 at 179.97 mph
 
"The transmission shifted from second gear to sixth. Those first two runs must have tweaked it a little. But it ran clean down the track and we must have found the wiring problem. We really had a horseshoe up our butt today to win those rounds with a bike that could hardly get out of its own way."

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