March 2022
By Mary Lendzion
Photos by NMRA and courtesy of Samantha Moore
On a mission to be even more competitive in NMRA JDM Engineering Limited Street this year, Samantha Moore recently performed plenty of work on her car at Vector Motorsports, which she co-owns with Dan Sienkiewicz.
Check out our story on all of that work by clicking HERE
When it was wrapped up, she made the long haul from Michigan to the first NMRA race of the year, the 28th Annual Spring Break Shootout, March 3-6 at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida, where she dove into dialing-in her Mustang powered by a new Coyote engine by Holbrook Racing Engines, new heads ported by Frankenstein Engine Dynamics, a ProCharger P-1X and Coan Turbo 400 and converter.
“We literally just put the good old-fashioned ‘burnout and send it’ tune in the car since we didn’t get to dyno or test before Florida, and that made me nervous because we had changed the entire car over winter,” said Moore, whose car is rolling on new UPR suspension components and new Strange 40-spline axles and brakes. “The car went straight on the first test pass and I lifted at the eighth-mile, and then I made two more test passes to get more data and to clean up the tune, and things seemed good until I lost a couple ribs on the blower belt. We were in the pit area until 2 a.m. trying to figure out why. We tried different idler pulleys, brackets and more, and put it back together.”
Unfortunately, the problem persisted on her final pre-qualifying test pass the next morning.
“Dan (Sienkiewicz) came up with an idea for the spacing of the pulleys, and it worked,” said Moore. “It didn’t make sense, but it worked.”
Indeed it did, as Moore went on to a wild 8.15 to lead qualifying. She then lifted to an 8.32 on a solo pass in the first round of eliminations, picked up to a powerful, and record-setting, 8.14 to win the second round of eliminations followed by an 8.15 to win the final round of eliminations against Stacey Roby, who turned on the red light.
“I really wanted to qualify in the number one spot, set a record and win the race, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to do all of that,” said Moore. “When Stacey went red in the final round of eliminations, I stayed in the throttle because I wanted to enjoy the ride. We had worked so hard and done so much to the car in the off-season, and we were very proud that it did its job.”
Moore now has her sights set on the second race of the year, the eagerly anticipated Scoggin Dickey Parts Center NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals presented by MAHLE Motorsport, April 21-24, Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina.
“We’re definitely happy with how the car performed, but I still plan to work on some things before the race in North Carolina and see what else we can do,” said Moore.