Oct 18/06

Hello Bob,

I am a Northern Force fan of the 1980's. How were you able to win so much? When my friends and I thought you were down, you always found a way to win. A couple of my buddies figure you were cheating.
Is that true?

Bill Rae Georgetown, ON

Bill,

Thanks for your note. We didn't cheat but were many times checked over for that sort of thing. My partner at the time Vince took exception to losing and was able to clearly think about what we had to do each round to win. We primarily changed clutch settings, blower speeds, ignition timing, and rear wing angles to suit the conditions. I would also adjust my driving technique. I won roughly 50% of my matches on quicker reaction times. For example we were going to the final round of an NHRA Winston Championship Series race in Cincinnati, Ohio. The competition had about 15 hundredths of a second advantage in elapsed time over our car. One of the local racers that we had beaten the previous round sarcastically said "looks like you guys are done, what are you going to do now?" Vince looked at him and pulled a small diameter blower pulley out of his pocket. "We'll use this, Bob will tree him, and the guy will be history." And that's exactly what we did. The win that day put us in the lead for the N.H.R.A. championship point’s chase.

Bob Elliott