Marcus, those of you that have seen me posting on here know that I'm a pretty straight shooter about things. When it comes down to engines, engine set up and run time there are quite a few variables. At the nat's (where I was at with him) we never had the opportunity to actually put in a complete 10+ minute run (at race pace) to check the actual run time at that specific track. This is one of the draw backs of having a single car team at an event like the nats, you are so busy trying different set ups without being able to bounce ideas off of other team mates that you are always pressed for time. So first off to run over 10 minutes (at that type of race) without actually checking it would have been a gamble something that we could have done based on the fuel that was left in his tank on the occasions that I timed him in practice (7 minutes hard with no crashes, no traffic and over 1/3rd tank of fuel left).

Secondly after having been left out for an extra lap at the last wolds which resulted in him being run out of fuel by his pit team at 9:45 seconds (with the old B7-Pro C at the Farm!!, thankfully it was not me lol) he is extremely conservative about how long he stays out there. Always choosing to pit an extra time versus even attempting to push it.

Third, you have to compare apples to apples and in this case you are not. First, Drake is (supposedly) running a $300 based engine, something that right off the bat is 50% more expensive than the B5. Secondly he was running a 6mm reducer, we were running a 7mm reducer simply because we did not have time to test engine set up's (read the single car team portion above for an explanation of why). At that track if we were running a 6mm reducer and limiting throttle opening we would have gained an easy 45 seconds, but you have to have time to test this! Third, there were quite a few Novarossi's (and every other brand imaginable of engines) and no one else that I can remember went over 10 minutes except for Drank in the A no matter what type of motor they ran. And finally you are attempting to compare the B5, a 100% bone stock, production engine (that had over 6 gallons on it when we started the race ) to a Novarossi factory modified engine. Which if you have ever seen one of these, comes straight from Novarossi sealed and with the back plate glued on so that you can not even open it. To be honest, even the drivers do not know what they are running and I can guarantee you will never, ever be able to buy it.

And having said all of this I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to take anything away from Drake, he is an awesome driver, drove an awesome race and deserved to win it (even though I wish Kortz and him would not have tangled up in the main which broke Kortz shock as I think we had a top 5 car ;-). Believe me when I say that I also have the ability to do one off engines, make special parts and probably could make a 12 or 13 minute engine for one person if I wanted to but that is not my philosophy. We run stock engine, what we race with you can buy and in this case we ran the US Nationals with a $200 engine and made the A main and finished 8th running over half of it with only 3 shocks lol! Something that not a lot of other companies can say

Regards,

Ron Hopkins
Werks Racing