Route 66 NHRA Nationals Recap

It was great to be back behind the wheel of my 320 MPH top fuel dragster last weekend as we kicked off our 2023 summer season.

I’d like to start off this post by wishing you all a Happy Memorial Day. As you relax with your family and friends, it’s a great time to remember all of those that gave their lives in service or passed away as veterans who made it possible for us to continue to do what we love.

Going into Friday night we were pretty confident that the changes we made over the offseason were beneficial, but not monumental, and we planned to run the car to stripe. Unfortunately, we underestimated the tightness of the track and we were bitten by shake like many of the other cars.  On Saturday, we knew we needed to make a clean A to B run with 21 cars on the property but at the same time, we needed to put a good ET on the scoreboard. Thankfully, that is exactly what Stu and Dom dialed up. We clocked a 3.780 at 319.90 MPH which put us in the 13th qualifying position. Looking at the run in retrospect, Stu and Dom figured we more than likely ran a 3.76 because I rolled into the beams a little deep. We talked about it and decided to not really make any changes and try to go up there for Q3 and have me shallow stage and see if it runs the 76. I was able to put it in shallow, but the track grabbed the rear tire a little more than we planned and slowed us down to a 3.18 run. However, after that qualifying session was over that put us in the 14th qualified position out of 21 cars. This matched us up against Doug Kalitta for Sunday morning. We looked at the forceccast and decided that Sunday was going to be a completely different day than Friday and Saturday. We were the 5th pair of cars to run Sunday and unfortunately no cars up to us had made it down the right lane. Doug and his crew decided to do a lane swap and put us into that right lane. Stu came over and said we have two choices: to keep everything the same and more than likely blow the tires off or slow it down and maybe it will make it down. We decided to slow it down to see what would happen. When I hit the gas, the car washed out and was trying to spin the tire. It pushed me over to the right near the wall, but it was making it down. I knew I was out of the groove a little, but I also couldn't see Doug. But, being out of the groove caused the tires to loose traction and this allowed Doug to pull away to win the round by .06.

What we learned was that we are all confident that we have a car capable of winning some rounds. No matter how we placed, this was a definite win for our team.

I’d like to start off this post I need to say thank you to all of the gentlemen that give their time to help me out. Thank you to Tim, David, Phil, Alex, Darrel, Dallas, Randy, Arnie, Jeff, and AJ for all of your support—without you, this would be impossible. Also, I’d like to offer a big thank you to Mike Wolfarth for getting everything prepared to go racing, and John Stewart and Dom Lagana for making great tune-up calls during the weekend.

We hope to see you at one of our other races this summer. Check out our schedule to find a date to join us!

Weekend Recap: Midwest Nats

Though we are sad that our season is coming to an end, we were excited to have such a great final weekend.

Prior to the Midwest Nationals, we had a little fun with a few of the crew guys that work on Steve Torrence’s hot rod. We rented the go-kart track at World Wide Technology facility. If you haven’t visited them, make sure you do next time you’re in town.

Our game plan Friday night was to run in the 78-79 range. Unfortunately, I lost focus on the starting line and allowed the car to roll in deep which took away from our ET. We still ran well at 3.842 at 321 mph. After that run, we sat 7th in the qualifying order.

On Saturday for Q2, our plan stayed the same and we made a nice clean lap at 3.817 at 322 mph. For Q3, Stewie made a few adjustments and we headed up to the starting line with a goal to run in the 3.76 range. Unfortunately, just past half track we shot out two spark plugs (one from each side) and crossed the finish line at 3.804 at 319 mph. This put us 14 on the qualifying list.

After looking at the data, we were pretty confident that we had a car that could run better than most probably thought. With this in mind, we figured we had a chance to surprise a few people on Sunday morning. We made our quickest run ever at 3.747 at 327 mph. However, I was a little tardy on the tree and lost on a hole shot.

Regardless, this was another great weekend and #KyleWurtzelRacing ends the year with their quickest pass ever!

Thanks again to all my crew who all helped in making this a memorable season. Thanks to Bobby and Dom Lagana and John Stewart for making the tuning calls. And finally, but far from least, thanks to Mike Wolfarth for always making sure I have parts ready for the next race.

We look forward to seeing you all next season and encourage you to keep checking our website for our 2023 Schedule!

Introducing Our Sponsor for the NHRA Midwest Nationals

Everyone at Kyle Wurtzel Racing is pleased to announce our sponsor for the NHRA Midwest Nationals on September 30th-October 2nd. We are extremely grateful to Warning Lites of Southern Illinois for their support.

As many of you know, racing isn’t Kyle’s full time profession, so we are always so thankful for any help to ensure that we can continue to do our best and put on a show for race fans each year.

Again, thank you to Warning Lites for your dedication to us. We look forward to seeing you all at the #MidwestNats next week!

If you’re interested in sponsoring a race or the 2023 season, please contact us.

NHRA US Nationals 2022

Many of you might not know this, but in our offseason, the Nitro Ninjas fitted me with a new-to-me car. Dom and Bobby Lagana, John Stewart, and Aaron Brooks all helped our team to put it together.

Thanks to these efforts, we had a wonderful weekend in Indy. I need to say thank you to Mike Wolfarth, Bobby and Dom Lagana, John Stewart, Phil Stewart, David Borowski, Darrel Biffar, Lucas Biffer, Tony Biffar, Alex Wessel, AJ Wessel, Jeff Konken, Randy Heitzleman, my wife, Julia, and my daughter, Brooklyn. Without their help and support, I wouldn’t be able to do this.

No, we didn’t qualify for the quickest top fuel field in history, but we don’t have anything to be ashamed of! Bobby and Stewie were able to figure out our hole dropping issue and we were able to run our career fastest numbers two different times. On Saturday, for the first shot we went 322 mph and on the second shot we went 327 mph.

What we were able to learn over the course of the weekend we will definitely be able to apply in the future and run quicker than our 3.79 run!

We will be out one more time this season and are heading to the NHRA Midwest Nationals at the end of the month.

Make sure to check back in a few months as we will have the 2023 season schedule posted.

Our Quest to Run in the 70s

First of all, I would like to apologize for lack of race recaps for 2020. As you all know, it’s been busy and the racing season has been different for all of us thanks to the pandemic. I promise to do better next year and am really optimistic that things will be back to normal!

Let's rewind a little to talk about our steps to get into the 70's. In 2018, at our last race as a team, we decided to start focusing on figuring out how to run in the 70's over running consistently, but a little slower in the high 80's and 90's. Unfortunately, over the winter into the 2019 season, we caught a gremlin in the clutch department and it took us most of our year to find that gremlin. Right before our last race, we found out our problem was in the clutch accumulator. We went to our last race in St. Louis and got it to run in the 80's, but fell short of our 70's goal.  

Fast forward to the winter before the 2020 season we spent a lot of time and energy retooling the car to make sure in 2020 we could put our best foot forward to get in the 70's. Mr. Douglas spent  some time with us teaching/showing us a couple of areas that we needed to pay a little more attention to to get the car to perform a tenth of a second better. Unfortunately, our clutch gremlin decided to move into our ignition system and our best laid out plans didn't go as planned for our 2020 season. Eventually, we figured out issues and headed to the US Nationals with a little confidence but also knew we needed a few runs to get into 70's. The car responded exactly how it should but unfortunately our fuel pump started to get a little weak. We knew going into race day we just weren't going to be able to muster that 70. Following the race, we sent off the pump to get fluffed up and ready to roll. 

As we headed for our last race in St. Louis, we had one goal in mind and that was to run 70's starting with the first shot. Unfortunately, the driver didn't know what it was going to feel like running that hard. In Q1 shortly after I hit the gas, I felt what I thought was the car getting ready to go into tire shake and I decided to pedal the car.  Once back to the pit and Mr. Douglas brought up the run on the computer he nicely pointed out that what I felt was the clutch locking up sooner than it has ever before. I reassured me that on Sunday if it felt like that again to keep my foot down and enjoy the ride of my life. All I can say is that he was right! In E1, when I hit the gas the car felt exactly like it did the night before but this time I kept my foot down and we blasted to my career best 3.787 at 321 mph! We finally did it. Let me tell you the journey was long and took a lot of perseverance but like most things in life we have to keep our heads up and keep working hard for our goals!

Thank you for cheering us on this year. We appreciated the support from those of you watching safely from your own home and those of you that made it to the track and sent us photos and words of encouragement. We’ll see you in a few months!

End of Season Recap

To say this racing didn’t go as planned this year is an understatement. We were supposde to start the year like this last race, not finish the season that way.

Between Brainerd and St Louis , Mike and Ron spent some time really focusing on our clutch management system. Mike knew something was not quite right, but we couldn’t figure it out. What they found was we were having an accumulator problem. The accumulator holds the fluid that moves the clutch system. We had o-rings leaking air by. So when we would start the weekend it would actually work okay but as we used it the oil in the accumulator would start to get whipped up and become thicker in substance and cause the clutch to slow down.

With this now figured out, we were hoping the car would respond to our changes and run a little better than it has.

Unfortunately, we kind of had to start over with clutch tune up ,so in Q1 we made the best guess possible. The clutch was a little to quick and caused tire smoke. In Q2 we slowed it down a little and ran our mid 90. In Q3 we starting speeding it back up again and ran a 3.87. For Q4 we speed the clutch up a little more but unfortunately the fuel line on the barrel valve vibrated a little loose. This caused us to lose some fuel and slow down a little and run a 3.89. We were trying to run better than a 87 and the data showed us that we were on track to do that. So for E1, our game plan was to go up there and try to run 81-83. When the car launched, it wore a lot of clutch early which would of been okay but you fuel pump wasn’t quite big enough and the motor went a little lean burning up a cylinder. When that happened it caused a little trash to get under the intake valve and caused the blower pop. All in all, we had a great weekend and left us optimistic for next year!

I would to thank my family and friends for the support and help on the car. Without them this dream isn’t possible!

Mid Season Review

We have reached the midpoint of the racing season and to say that things haven’t gone as planned is an understatement. However, that’s how racing goes and we are keeping are head’s up and are looking ahead to the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, MN and finishing out our season in St. Louis at the end of September. (Learn more about these races on our schedule page).

In Norwalk, we approached Q1 with the goal of trying to run a low 80, but smoked the tires just like we did in Q4 in Joliet. This made us dig a little deeper into the data recorder where we discovered that in Q3 at Chicago, we had broken an air fitting that runs our fuel system. Though ideally we would have caught this after Q4 in Joliet, we missed it, causing the motor to run accurately. Since we had this issue fixed, we were confidant going into Q2 at Norwalk, but because we shot out a spark plug, things didn’t go as planned. In Q3, likely due to high track temperatures, lack of rubber on the racing surface, we again smoked the tires. We sat out Q4 in the hopes that we would still make it, but we got bumped out by .03 seconds.

We were of course upset, but we don’t plan to alter form our goal of what we are trying to achieve this year. When you are limited with runs, it makes it more difficult to become a 70 car without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to one of the big teams for a tune up.

We hope to see you at Brainerd in a few weeks and look forward to your support as we wrap up our season.

Route 66 NHRA Regionals Recap

Photo Courtesy of Steve Starking

We had a plan when we headed into Chicago about how how to run the car for our first race out.. The plan was on Q1 set the car up soft to run from A to B. And then from there on if weather and track conditions allowed, to try to make it run a high 3.70 to a low 3.80. 

On Q1 we ran a 3.96, which we knew wouldn’t be enough to make the field but would be enough to qualify and gave us the opportunity to try out our plan. For the next three qualifying attempts, we worked the car hard. On Q2 we were running my best incrementally ever until the blower belt broke. This was very disappointing was we had just put a new belt on. However, we were very optimistic because the incrementals show we are on the right path.

On Q3, at the launch, the car washed out to the left and unfortunately got out of the groove and spun the tires. On Q4 we immediately went up in tire smoke. (We believe this happened because we were running new tires).

Though the outcome wasn’t exactly what we had hoped, we are very optimistic from the lessons we’ve learned on the track already this season.

If you haven’t already, take time to “meet” our crew, who make this dream of mine possible.

If you’re interested in seeing us run live, our scheduled races can be found here.

We hope to see many of our fans cheering us on in a week at the #NorwalkNats.

Season Wrap Up: Charlotte

Our race in Charlotte was a planned weekend to learn how to run the car harder and figure out how to get in the 3.70’s.  Our game plan for Q1 was to set up the car to run what we normally do, which is a high 80 to low 90. 

In the first round, we ran 3.90 seconds and I shut it off at 3.7 second. With that number on the board, we knew we were comfortably in the show.  So, we spent the next 3 qualifying runs trying things we have never ventured to do in the clutch department. 

The car did show us promise that it can and will run in the 70’s very soon and it responded favorably with every change we made. The short track numbers were great, but we couldn’t get the pistons to live past half track.  Each run we worked on the fuel system and it did get better, but we weren’t able to successfully pull it off. 

On Sunday, our game plan was to back the tune up off a little bit and try to run a low 80 to make sure we went down the track and if Clay messed up, we would win. Unfortunately, I got a little too anxious on the starting line.  As we were both staged, I began to push on the throttle anticipating the tree.  Well my brain caught up and said no so I let off the throttle and then of course the tree came down.  So my reaction time was atypical and the run was messed up because of the rpm changes at launch.  I felt horrible to let my team down because Clay was definitely vulnerable to be put on the trailer.  However, overall I would say we had a good weekend and really learned a lot to start making this car perform more in line where it should be.

We are looking forward to next summer as we decide what races are optimal for myself and my team. Please keep checking this site and our Facebook page for updates in the off season.

Summit Nationals: A Wet Weekend

Photo Courtesy of Mike Corn

Unfortunately, if you were in Norwalk this past weekend, you know that a lot of the events were quite literally a wash. Rain came in on Friday and dominated much of the qualifications before a clear Sunday for eliminations.

In Q1 on Friday, a $10 part cost us the run--this is racing though. Things happen, and you just have to move on and try again. Luckily, we were able to get in another pass for Q3 as both Q2 and Q4 were rained out. 

In E1, Tony Schumacher was just a bit faster, with a .092 reaction time to our .070 and he ran a 3.807 to our 3.902. Overall, it was a great run and we are proud of what we accomplished this weekend.

A huge shout out to our absolutely amazing fans who braved the rainy weather, and as always my amazing crew who worked tirelessly to make this a great weekend.

We are taking July off to regroup, recharge, and relax with our families. Please check our schedule to see where you can find us next and stay tuned to our social media for updates about our new t-shirts we hope to have available for you in August!

Route 66 Nationals

We had a great weekend at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, IL. We were thrilled to win our first round against Brittany Force and can not thank all of our fans enough for their cheers, tweets, Facebook posts, etc. 

We are still learning the tuning curve for the 6 disk clutch, but we are getting really close to having a more consistent (and faster!) car.

A big thank you to our crew, who work tirelessly every race!

Also, a shout out to Paul Kohler, who took some amazing photos of the car! We'll be including some on the website, but in the meantime, check them out on our Facebook page!

©Paul Kohler

Meet Nick Shultz, Short Block Specialist

We are proud to welcome Nick Shultz of Fort Wayne, IN to the crew!

Nick is an engine machinist and engine builder who is new to our crew this season. He has been interested in racing since his childhood. His father took him to both IndyCar races and the US Nationals in Indianapolis in his youth and it is something he remembers fondly. 

Nick looks forward to contributing consistent quality workmanship to the team.

A big thank you to Nick for dedicating his time to the team this year!

New Sponsorship: Red Line Oil

We are pleased to announce that Red Line Oil will be sponsoring Kyle Wurtzel Racing this year. A big thank you to everyone there. Look out for more updates about this on our Facebook and Twitter page in the coming months.

We are excited to kick off our racing season next week at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte. 

For more information about upcoming races, please check our schedule.

If you're interested in being a sponsor for this racing season, please contact us. 

Our First Race

We were excited to get the car out in Bristol and to see all of the support from fans as we made our first pass of the season.

The high point was our Q2 run where we ran a 3.955 at only 265 mph. We were also lucky to get some TV time on Fox Sports 1--thanks to all of you who shared the video on social media. It's always fun to hear from fans at home!

We will be in Joliet the weekend of July 8th and are looking forward to more normal air and weather conditions in the hopes of making four really good qualifying runs to learn more about our new clutch and fuel systems.

This year, we have two main goals: to run in the 70's and win a round of racing. 

Help us with those goals by showing your support on social media--whether on our facebook page or by tweeting us with #kylewurtzelracing. Reading your posts helps motivate us!

Thank you again for your support this season!

Hero Card Requests

For hero card requests, please visit the contact page.

In the subject line, please indicate hero card requests and in the message, please indicate how many you will need.

Please note it may take up to a month to ship and that requests will be accommodated as long as supplies last.

My Crew: Take Two

The questions have been pouring in about the crew.

The crew members are volunteering their time to be on the Kyle Wurtzel Racing team. Several of the crew members have worked on other part-time or full-time teams in the fast and a few are first time crew members. The crew members come to us through recommendation and are from Illinois, Iowa, Canada, and Indiana. Obviously this is a dangerous sport and having a sharp crew like mine is very important to help keep me safe and the parts in the car.

For more information about our amazing crew, click here.

Please note, we aren't currently accepting new crew members.

What does the crew do?

Quite a few of you have asked what the crew does at the race track.

On Friday and Saturday nights we spend about 3-4 hours after everyone leaves servicing the race car and parts to be ready for the next day.  This typically involves working on heads to make sure they are in tip top shape, grinding the flywheel and pressure plate so they are straight and new, cleaning up the mess on the car from the two runs, and fixing any of the small things that might have happened. 

We also put a set of rods and pistons in the motor for the next run but don’t bolt on the heads because we have to wait and see what the weather conditions are going to be like to make a head gasket call.  We then pack everything up for the night.  My crew guys will leave and stay at a local hotel.

We couldn't do what we do without our amazing crew, who take time out of their lives to support Kyle Wurtzel Racing!

Last Week at Route 66

It's been a week since our last race. I want to start this post by thanking Mike Wojciechowski at Xtreme Edge Excavating for his support this past weekend!  Thanks Mike!! 

Heading into the weekend we were very excited, but nervous.  With both qualifying shots being night sessions, we assumed the bump was going to be fast.  Our game plan was to make two early shut off shots on Friday.  We are working on our mid track numbers trying to run harder to get in the mid to low 3.80 range.  On the first shot, I shut the car off around half track.  Which turned out to be a good thing.  The left side cylinder head was trying to push out a head gasket and it started to melt the head a little.  On the second shot on Friday, I shut the car off at half-track again and for the second time in a row we were lucky.  This time we shot out a spark plug on the right side of the motor. 

Most likely, if we didn’t plan on the early shut offs, I probably wouldn’t have felt the problems and we would have ended up with some catastrophic damages.  After Friday, we were optimistic about Saturday because the car is wanting to run 3.85-3.86 pretty easily and we escaped Friday night with limited damage and no oil down penalties.  On Saturday for the Q3 we had the car set up to try to run a 3.86 and unfortunately on the run we broke an air fitting on the clutch management system that caused the clutch bearing to move quicker and subsequently smoked the tires.  When we got back to the pit for between round service is, we found the problem.  The fitting was an easy fix, but the biggest problem was going to be bleeding the management system.  

Thankfully fellow competitor Luigi Novelli saved our day.  This shows you that he and his crew are first class people.  Luigi was going to be the car that we were going to try to bump out and without his help we wouldn’t of had that chance.  Thank you very much Novelli Racing! 

Unfortunately for us, mother nature had a different plan and prevented us from making the last qualifying shot.  So we were left outside of the top 16 and were spectators for the rest of the weekend.  Overall, we had a great time but just had a little bad luck over the weekend.  We are very content with the car and the direction we are heading with it. 

A big thank you to our fans for your tweets, comments on Facebook, and your presence at the track. We look forward to seeing you all in St. Louis this September!

Win a FREE Kyle Wurtzel Racing Hat

Help us generate buzz about Kyle Wurtzel Racing on social media.
Post a photo on twitter with the hashtag, #kylewurtzelracing either at the track, watching the race on TV, or how you get your information about the race. One random person will be chosen from their tweets to win a hat!

The race will be on ESPN 2 on Friday from 10 p.m. to midnight and on Saturday LIVE from 2-5 p.m.

We look forward to chatting with you on Twitter! If you aren't already, make sure to follow us.

The Top Five of the NHRA Kansas Nationals

1. We ran our career best of 3.89
2. We qualified. (If you're keeping track, we've qualified for our first two NHRA races!)
3. We were able to get 4 runs in to work on our tune up with the new parts we bought in the off season.
4. We were able to get a good baseline for the Chicago race, which will most likely be the quickest race we will attempt to qualify for.
5. The crew guys were able to get back into the swing of things. (It had been 8 months since our last run).

Overall, it was a great weekend. Check out the awesome pictures from Auto Imagery!