McBride was fourth out of the four bikes that were able to make a pass that round. Mitch Brown was shut off with an oil leak, Elmeri Salakari seemed to have all pipes soaking wet, while Bob Malloy and Micah Fenwick both made it down the 1000 foot track somewhat, with Malloy\u2019s 5.90 leading the way.<\/p>\n
Q2 offered some relief at around 7:00 pm. \u201cThat was definitely the time to run low qualifier,\u201d said Larry. \u201cIt was cooler temperature for sure. We knocked some clutch flow down a little from the Q1 pass.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McBrides had the tune-up dialed in perfectly, posting a 4.83 at an NHRA 1000 foot record of 242.93 mph. \u201cThat would have been in the mid-260s in the quarter mile,\u201d figured Larry.<\/p>\n
McBride was back on top, Salakari jumped to second with a 5.38, Fenwick improved to a 5.69, Malloy\u2019s Q1 time dropped to fourth, and Brown got down the track to get a number on the board.<\/p>\n
If Friday was hot, Saturday was cast-iron blistering. The McBrides went to the line for Q3 with their tune-up unchanged and smoked the tire.<\/p>\n
Behind them the field tightened up. Fenwick\u2019s 5.69 was now the rear of the field, with Salakari\u2019s 5.38 just ahead of him. Brown jumped to third with a 5.29 while Malloy jumped to a 4.91, tucked in right behind McBride. The first round of eliminations later in the day would surely be interesting.<\/p>\n
But less interesting for McBride, who had the bye and only the light pressure of fine-tuning their Pingel sponsored machine. Good thing, as the bike smoked the tire at the hit and went 6.23 at only 119 mph. \u201cWe took more primary clutch weight off of it,\u201d said Larry.<\/p>\n
Salakari redlit against Brown, while Fenwick and Malloy both fought traction issues. Micah nailed a brilliant .026 light but smoked his tire first. The more experienced Malloy started spinning as well but was able to gather it up and apply some more throttle for the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a great weekend for us,\u201d said Finnish rider Salakari. \u201cWas looking for a fuel issue but eventually it turned to be ignition issue. Once we got it figured I took the redlight in E1. That sucked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVirginia sucked,\u201d agreed Fenwick. \u201cHot greasy, never made a clean pass on the bike. Pretty sure we have ignition problems, so I\u2019ve changed the mag and some other stuff out, but I haven\u2019t had a chance to test it yet. Hope to get the bike sorted out soon as this type of racing takes a toll on you for sure, especially when things don\u2019t go right.\u2019<\/p>\n
Sunday found the bikes now racing on the very surface of the sun, or so it seemed. \u201cWe left it alone and damn it\u2014it smoked the tire and sent me towards the wall,\u201d said Larry. Fortunately for him, Brown also was struggling. Both riders were on and off the throttle, with Mitch closing fast. McBride crossed the line first with a 5.80 at 162 to Brown\u2019s 5.89 at 194. Another 320 feet and the winner would have been different. Great racing!<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year has been tough for us, which is kind of what I expected,\u201d said Brown. \u201cI knew we would have a learning curve with the all-valve fuel system, but we definitely had some other issues along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirginia was a mixture of hot and miserable, and unexpected problems. The track was very tricky to get down and we were all trying to manage the power just to get down the track without losing traction.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other side of the ladder, Malloy had the bye and puttered down the track. Would he be ready to fight Larry in the final?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cut all the flows off and just tried to run mainly on primaries,\u201d said Larry, who added \u201cWe did have some late clutch flows that we brought in.\u201d<\/p>\n
That did the job with an air temperature of 92 degrees, relative humidity at 54 percent, barometer at 30.11 inches, adjusted altitude of 2,968 feet, and a track temperature of 147 degrees. McBride ran a fine 4.98 at 232 while Malloy struggled to a 6.70 at 111.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the end of the day and I was glad,\u201d said Larry. \u201cIt was too hot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot to learn, I\u2019ll tell you that,\u201d said Malloy, who so far this year is still the best of the rest as he learns his way through the labyrinth of his FuelTech ECU. \u201cI\u2019m still working with stuff that was programmed wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamian Muscat (Australian racer) helped me tremendously when he was here at the Chicago race. He came here to hang out and I put him to work. He dug into that thing and found several things that were wrong from the initial set-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cRunner-up feels better than first round out, but obviously not as good as the winner\u2019s seat. We\u2019ve made great strides. Mitch is building a billet cylinder head for us. That\u2019s our weak link right now. Our cylinder head situation is dismal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBobby is right there,\u201d Larry said about Malloy\u2019s performance. \u201cI think Mitch is on the right track and Micah\u2014I think they\u2019ll find it eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
And we\u2019ve seen what Salakari\u2019s bike can do when that jewel spins just right.<\/p>\n
\u201cLarry\u2019s gonna be hard to beat,\u201d said Malloy. \u201cHe\u2019s been the number one guy for 25 years. They have so much experience and so many parts (including eight engines!). He\u2019s got depth everywhere. All one can hope for is someday the planets align.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still miss racing the quarter mile, but a thousand foot is easier on parts,\u201d said McBride. It also fosters a different mindset in the Brothers McBride. Quarter mile records were made to be broken and that was their single-minded focus. Thousand foot racing just doesn\u2019t have the same history and the McBrides seem more content to race for wins than shoot for records.<\/p>\n
Although they set that MPH record in Virginia despite the heat. Now everyone is looking forward to what should be more hospitable conditions at Brainerd, Minnesota on August 15-17th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n \u201cNHRA Richmond was a tough race for Top Fuel Motorcycle teams with the high temperatures,\u201d noted class sponsor Donna Pinglel. \u201cHard to tune, hot track, and tough for the guys in their leather suits.<\/p>\n \u201cCongrats to the Spiderman\/McBride team for persevering. Now we\u2019re Looking forward to the next race at Brainerd.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to Brainerd and some nicer weather,\u201d said Brown. \u201cI want to thank all of our friends, family, and sponsors that help us get to the races. It\u2019s very tough and there\u2019s no way we could do it without them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna keep swinging,\u201d said Fenwick. \u201cI hope to make it to Brainerd, but that is a 3600 mile trip for me, which means lots of fuel and tolls as everyone knows. So I\u2019m trying to save up all I can and hopefully one of my friends will win the lottery!\u201d<\/p>\n The good news is that both of the ex-David Vantine bikes are scheduled for testing this summer and one of the riders is even ordering a motor from McBride.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully they\u2019ll be out racing by September,\u201d finished Larry.<\/p>\n The more the merrier, so let\u2019s get these Pingel Top Fuel Motorcycles to the lanes!<\/p>\n This story was originally published on July 3, 2025. The post Pingel NHRA Top Fuel Motorcycle Field Tightens Up in Virginia Heat<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Virginia Pingel NHRA Top Fuel Motorcycle race is an annual sun-seared, sweat-soaked drag race of epically hot and humid proportions at Dinwiddie\u2019s Virginia Motorsports Park. In this concrete sauna, men encase themselves in very thick leather suits, Nomex head socks, helmets, gloves and boots, then lay face first atop 1600 horsepower nitromethane bombs emitting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
<\/p>\n