Without any doubt one can say that the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, for any "Gearhead," is the place
to be at least once a year. That's exceedingly true for the Tanksley Racing crew out of Central,
Louisiana. A victory at "The Big Go" is still whipping in the wind for this Comp Eliminator race
team. Driver Joey Tanksley who is a veteran of the Mac Tools U.S.
Nationals can attest to the drama and emotion that this race bares down on any racer. Joey has a
final round appearance at Indy under his belt already, which left him as a runner-up to Jeff Taylor
in the year 2000 with his B/Econo Dragster.
On the other hand, this year has been a year of considerable change of combination to the Ballistic
Racecraft rear-engine five-speed C/Dragster that is powered by a Steve Kent owned Patterson Racing
small-block. As mentioned by Joey, "We've made extraordinary changes with our combination.
We've almost completely changed our concept of how to run this class. The guys at Patterson Racing
are behind us on this, and along with much work and craftsmanship from CFE, we've only been amazed
at how this program has turned out." Joey also includes "We still feel that we haven't even touched
the horizon of the capability of this combination, and we are confident that we should be even
faster than ever before. Indy should be interesting." He also comments "I really want this to be a
special weekend not only for us, but also for Steve Kent Trucking. We couldn't do this if Steve
himself wasn't part of this operation. Besides that, there's another important reason we're going,
and we just can't wait to finally be able to get it off our mind's."
For now, time will only tell, but for Team Tanksley it's "All Go at the Big Go." Watch, or listen
up via NHRA Audiocast, for Team Tanksley in qualifying Thursday evening, and then mid-day on
Friday.
