\u201cIt was just pure happiness,\u201d Mark Micke said as he thought back to the moment when he and his \u201cgroup\u201d reset the E.T. world record for a turbocharged Pro Mod in the quarter mile.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mindset is once I get a game plan together, we\u2019re going to do it no matter what. So there was a lot of satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Micke, owner of M&M Transmission, made up his mind at the beginning of 2023 that he was going after a world record. His twin-turbo 1969 Camaro Pro Mod \u2013 that was the car to get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we originally built this new car, that was our ultimate goal, to go after the quarter mile record,\u201d explained Micke. \u201cMine, Eric Dillard, Jose [Gonzalez], FuelTech, the whole group, we wanted to build something that would potentially set the record, so that\u2019s why we did what we did with the race car and the turbo motor \u2013 everything was built for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former multi-time NMCA and PDRA champion took advantage of the testing sessions ahead of the 52nd Annual Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton Motorsports Park to fulfill his goal.<\/p>\n\n
During Tuesday\u2019s testing, former NHRA Pro Mod champion Jose Gonzalez wheeled Micke\u2019s Camaro to a 5.359 at 272.94 mph in the quarter-mile, resetting the record for the quickest turbocharged Pro Mod and besting the long-standing record of Khalid Mohammed\u2019s 5.379-second mark set in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cJose has been a friend of mine and a good customer for years,\u201d Micke said. \u201cFor the quarter-mile deal, that\u2019s pretty fast. I hadn\u2019t had a lot of experience driving quarter mile.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJose is the best Pro Mod driver out there \u2013 he can handle a race car, so it was just natural that we wanted Jose in there. Jose was all about trying to set the record, too, and it was all about putting the best person in the car to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n Once Micke and his team realized what happened on the starting line, he was overcome with joy.<\/p>\n \u201cI was happy for my group \u2013 M&M Transmission, FuelTech, ProLine, Garrett Turbo Chargers, Garrett Advancing Motion, Turbosmart, just for everybody,\u201d said Micke. \u201cWe call it our group \u2013 it was a huge, huge accomplishment for our group, and it was fun. We had a good time with it. We were all just joking and having a good time all day because there was really no pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n Furthermore, Micke explained that his car had been good all season long and even won a few races<\/a>. However, he had to switch to quarter mile trim in order to go after the world record he had set his mind on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m lucky I have Steve Petty and Brandon Stroud at our disposal, so with those two, we all got together and figured out what it was going to take to run the quarter mile,\u201d Micke said.<\/p>\n He continued to explain that Gonzalez had just arrived at the track, and he got straight into the car to get fitted. Micke and his team didn\u2019t miss a beat at all during Tuesday\u2019s test session<\/p>\n \u201cWe sent him down the track and said to run it to the eighth mile, and it made a good run,\u201d said Micke. \u201cIt went 3.67, which wasn\u2019t a record, but it was a good run for the first run to say, \u2018Hey, this shit\u2019s going to work.\u2019 So we came back, and Steve and Brandon, I all got together and put a plan together and told Jose to run it to the thousand foot just to get a feel for it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe first run to a thousand feet, it went a 5.39. We\u2019re like, we got something here pretty serious now to play with,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo there again, we all got together, came back, made an adjustment on the tune-up, and bam went out and went to 5.35. At that point, we\u2019re like, well, we did what we set out to do, so we decided to stop. We\u2019re like, we know we got a lot left in it, but we\u2019ll save that for later.\u201d<\/p>\n Micke also addressed that specially made parachutes<\/a> were sent from Stroud Safety just for this attempt at a record-breaking run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey worked flawlessly,\u201d stated Micke. \u201cThat put us at ease knowing that they went through the time and the research and gave us something we knew that would stop the car because that was a huge concern for everybody involved. We know it\u2019s going to accelerate, we know we can run it down there, but what\u2019s it going to do to stop?\u201d<\/p>\n According to Micke, Gonzalez handled the whole thing like he was \u201cout for a Sunday drive. Jose doesn\u2019t even move a hand on that thing the whole run.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Gonzalez was full of emotion once he found out what he and the group just accomplished.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the radio, Tim Davis, Jose\u2019s longtime guy, was yelling at him, you got the record. Jose was wound up,\u201d Micke explained. \u201cJose\u2019s friend Izzy was here \u2013 he was going nuts, and the whole group was going crazy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was fun to see the emotions of those guys, too. It was just a good time, and it felt like a big party at the end of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Mark Micke Discusses Jose Gonzalez\u2019s Quickest Quarter Mile Pass, Setting the New Record for a Doorslammer<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cIt was just pure happiness,\u201d Mark Micke said as he thought back to the moment when he and his \u201cgroup\u201d reset the E.T. world record for a turbocharged Pro Mod in the quarter mile. \u201cMy mindset is once I get a game plan together, we\u2019re going to do it no matter what. So there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,78117,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-race-pages","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90492","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=90492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91189,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90492\/revisions\/91189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}