couple of weeks," he said.
The final qualifying race was held at Lebanon Valley Raceway, in New York. Daly
needed a good showing to insure his slot for BIR. "I qualified fifth at the last
race," he said. "I faced D&D's Greg Roes in the first round and beat him." As
usual, Daly knew he needed a quick light to get past the second round. "I had
Shooping in the next round. He had his Polaris pretty well dialed in, so I tried
to anticipate the start and ended up red lighting. As it turns out, I scored all
the points I needed since Bellman broke that weekend."
Qualifying for the big show would prove to be only the first major hurdle standing
in the way. "We decided to change from the MX Z chassis we had been running in
qualifying to a CK-3," noted Daly. "It was reported to be much better in the wind
tunnel, and we knew we needed every little bit of help we could find. As it turns
out, we had bad weather for the week before Brainerd, and only had one test day to
get the sled dialed in."
In the first round, Daly used his quick reaction time to beat a faster and quicker
Hot To Go sled piloted by Joe Salemi. "That was pretty huge," said Daly in the pits.
"He had a faster speed and a lower ET, but I guess I cut a good light. I'm gonna
need a perfect light if I'm going to get past Shilts in the next round." But it was
not there. Despite a higher top speed, the Dynoport Ski-Doo couldn't catch up with
Kerry Shilts' D&D-powered ZR.
"Looking back on the season, I would say the biggest highlight was just qualifying,"
he told us. "In testing we ran as low as 9.58. That was a big confidence boost. We
took a ten-something sled and got it into the 9.5s in only a couple of months.
"Overall, I think we learned a lot on this project. It not only taught us to clutch
and make suspension adjustments, but it showed us how to look for small details to
make gains. It will
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definitely help us in the dyno room when we develop new products
for our business."
Daly was quick to point out that he certainly didn't get to Brainerd alone. "Even
though Ski-Doo wasn't very forthcoming with setup tips, I don't think any of the
other guys got a lot of support from their factories either. I had a lot of help
from Joe Beyea, my lone crewman. My other employees in the shop all laughed when
I told them I was going to race this year, but they put in a lot of time and effort
in development. What was the most surprising was the amount of help I got from other
racers. Rob Shooping from Hot To Go and the Roes brothers at D&D were great assets
in helping to point me where I needed to be. Also, Dave Wahl helped me solve the
suspension dilemma. Ingles Performance and Steve Tassinari kept me supplied with
parts and V-Force reeds when I needed them. Finally, Meg [Greenhaw] at NSSR was a
tremendous aid in getting past many of my rookie roadblocks. She helped me make
contacts for practice time at tracks, gave me pointers on building a sled that would
pass tech, and kept a tight, but very fair, set of rules."
Looking down the road, Daly just chuckles. "Yeah," he said. "I think I'll be back
again next year. My guys still think I'm nuts, but we've learned a lot and I'm looking
forward to doing better next year."
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