On the Road with Tony DeFrank. Follow along with California Car Cover's Executive Director, Tony DeFrank, as he travels the country attending car shows from coast to coast. While not on the road, Tony will share photos from catalog photo shoots, behind the scenes news and notes, product reviews and much more right here on the official blog of California Car Cover.
Earlier this month, California Car Cover' Chief Operations Officer, Jimmy DeFrank, was recognized for his accomplishments outside of the office. Jimmy has been competing in NHRA Sportsman drag racing for over twenty seasons. This past year he won his 5th national title in NHRA Super Stock competition. Everyone at California Car Cover is proud of what Jimmy has done.
Jimmy gave a speech in front of the other NHRA Lucas Oil winners, their families and racing sponsors. "We really could not go racing without the support of our sponsors, like K&N Air Filters, Red Line Oil," said Jimmy. "Competing for national championships means a lot of time on the road for the team and me, so everyone's support at California Car Cover really helps."
Jimmy shared the stage with all of the other winner's of NHRA Lucas Oil Racing Series national champions. Jimmy joins a small group of drivers that have won five or more national titles.
Jimmy at the "Walk of Fame" for drivers at the Dolby Theatre.
Congratulations to Jimmy and the entire Jim DeFrank and Sons Racing team for what they accomplished in 2016. It was a great season. We will have to wait until February to see what next season has in store. "We haven't set a game plan for next season yet. Our company is pretty busy during the holiday season, so I'm sure we will sit down after the first of the year to see what events we will attend in 2017", said Jimmy.
Jimmy DeFrank had another impressive outing this past weekend at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals. Jimmy, our company's Chief Operations Officer, piloted his 1969 Chevy Camaro to victory in the Stock Eliminator category. It was his second NHRA national event victory of the season.
Along the way he faced some tough competition, including a final round against good racer and friend, Kyle Seipel. The California Car Cover team did a great job over the weekend and look to continue the success in a few weeks at the NHRA US Nationals in Indianapolis. Big thanks to all of the support from Red Line Oil and K&N Air Filters.
Last weekend was a busy one for the California Car Cover Crew. While we had sales team in Portland, Oregon and Del Mar, Ca for classic car events, our own Jimmy DeFrank was competing at the NHRA Summit Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. Jimmy, who is our Chief Operations Officer, competes throughout the year on the NHRA circuit. He is a four time national champion in the NHRA Super Stock category and pulled off an amazing feat over the weekend.
At most events, Jimmy competes in two categories: Stock and Super Stock Eliminator. In Stock he drives a 1969 Chevy Camaro and in Super Stock he races a 2010 Chevy Cobalt. Over the weekend, he was able to win the final rounds in both cars. Only 14 drivers have even accomplished this feat and this is the second time that Jimmy has pulled it off in his career.
In the final round of Stock Eliminator, Jimmy faced Brad Burton a former NHRA national champion. Jimmy won a close race in his 1969 Chevy Camaro.
Super Stock Final Round
In Super Stock Eliminator, Jimmy also have to race past NHRA national champions in order to advance to the final round. In the final round, Jimmy won another tight race to claim his second trophy of the day.
Photo: Auto Imagery
Congratulations, to Jimmy DeFrank on winning two "Wallys" over the weekend in Las Vegas. It is not Jimmy's personality to boast or talk about his on track success, so we will do it for him this time.
Over Easter weekend, I decided to join my brother, Jimmy DeFrank, in Las Vegas for one of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series events. Since I have not raced with him that much in the past few years, I thought I would bring along my camera and video equipment and document the weekend.
Cool sight from Test & Tune for Camaro lovers.
Some quality time with my brother
If you follow our blog, you know I raced back in February in the same vehicle. But pretty much, I hadn't really raced since 2009 to focus more on California Car Cover. Jimmy, is a four-time NHRA national champion and loves being at the drag strip. I said I would race with him in Las Vegas because the family would be together on Easter weekend and that the Viva Las Vegas Car Show was also in town.
Along with Jimmy and me, our good friend and championship driver, Bo Butner, came to town to race Jimmy's old Chevy Camaro. Jimmy drove that Camaro to his first two NHRA national championships and the cars runs pretty well considering it has been parked for many years. Bo is a former national champion who campaigns out of Indiana.
The opening day of the event was a test and tune session. This gave Jimmy and I a few chances to go down the track and get a handle on the vehicle setup for the weekend. I definitely needed some practice since I was pretty rusty. The extra runs definitely worked out in the end for us.
Qualifying started on Friday morning. Stock eliminator, the class I ran in with the 1969 Camaro, is usually the first category out each day. That means we arrive at the racetrack around 7am to prep the vehicles.
Qualifying on Friday and Saturday morning went off without any major problems. There were a few chassis and engine issues for us to look at on both cars, but the vehicles ran about as well as we were expecting.
How we spend much of our time during qualifying days
Pops, crew chief Davey Allison and Jimmy discuss the elapsed time after one of my passes in the Camaro.
Jimmy warming up his Super Stock Chevy Cobalt. The Cobalt covers the 1/4 mile in less than 9 seconds at 155+ mph.
The elimination ladder had the potential to be a real test for our Chevy Camaro. In the first round, I drew a heads up race. For those of you who do not follow Stock eliminator racing, a heads up race is a first to the finish line race, instead of a handicap head start which you see most often in Stock or Super Stock racing. We would have to make the Chevy Camaro as fast as possible by changing oil, tires, cooling the engine and whatever else it took.
Fortunately, we were qualified better than our opponent and were able to run faster than him. As soon as we won the first round we found out we would have another heads up race. We were able to get by that round, but had to do a lot of work to make the Camaro run fast.
My father, Davey and I spent much of the day underneath the car changing oil. As you can see, I was not too thrilled about it.
While I was focused on the Chevy Camaro, Jimmy and Bo were preparing for their elimination rounds. Unfortunately, Bo lost in the opening round, but Jimmy made it through.
Have to keep a California Car Duster nearby at all times
Jimmy made it to the third round of eliminations with his Chevy Cobalt. This put the pressure on me to keep going and hopefully be racing late into the night.
We had a few tough races heading into the quarter finals of the eliminator where I faced another heads up race with a very fast car driven by Scott Burton. The team and I had to everything we could to out run Scott. We got the engine as cool as possible and hopefully it would be enough for us to win.
Scott and I during the coin flip to determine lane choice before the round
I though the following photos were pretty funny. I am not sure what my brother and father were talking about so I am just guessing.
Pops "I must ask you something very important."
Pops "How about we go to Cracker Barrel for dinner?" Jimmy: "Oh, boy!"
We pushed the car towards the starting line to keep the engine as cool as possible. Evidently I was not made aware of the jokes being told by the crew.
I was late off the starting line, but was fortunate because Scott's car stumbled off the line and I got the victory. The round win gave us a bye run into the final round.
After the semi-final round we saw that we would have yet another heads up race to determine the event winner, so it was back to the pits.
I was able to win the race by outrunning our competition. It was a great day for the Jim DeFrank & Sons Racing team. The crew did a great job of having the Camaro prepared for each elimination round. I wasn't driving that great and they definitely picked up the slack.
During credential check at the end of the racetrack, my father, brother and I all got a good laugh out of the circumstances. We had a lot of fun racing together the entire day.
The trophy
Davey, Jimmy, me, Pops and Bo.
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I don't have any plans to race additional events this season, which made the win much more special. Who knows when I will get back in the car, but at least the whole family was there for this one. Now I can definitely give my brother a hard time about not winning more often.
Follow along on the California Car Cover blog. We post photos from car shows across the country, product tests, racing coverage and much more that California Car Cover is involved with on a regular basis. Check us out on Facebook too.
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