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Jason Line Powers His Way to Fifth NHRA Pro Stock Pole of 2011 at Concord

27 sept. 2011

NHRA Pro Stock Driver Jason Line

Now considered his home track, zMax Dragway, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been very good to NHRA Pro Stock Driver Jason Line over the last three national events held there. Line was number one qualifier one year ago, again earlier this season and pounded his way to the top again during the latest event held at the pristine facility for the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.

Jason Line at the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.

With the feat, Line has now moved ten points ahead of teammate, Greg Anderson in the 2012 K&N Horsepower Challenge. He now narrowly holds down the number one spot for the prestigious annual shootout in which the top seven qualified drivers, along with a fan voted eighth, vie for the biggest single payday in all of NHRA Pro Stock and the $50,000 championship check.

During the first session for Pro Stock late Friday afternoon, Allen Johnson and K&N's Mike Edwards both laid down good 6.54 passes, only within a thousandth of a second a part, but it would be the final pair, with Line and Anderson, which would not only set the bar but set it real high for the field. Line posted a 6.510 and Anderson slid in right behind him for the early number two spot, only five thousandths behind him. Line's ET was not only a zMax track record, but the first part of what could turn out to be a new NHRA Pro Stock National Record, if he could make it into the 6.40's.

When the professional fields rolled to the lanes for the second session of qualifying mid-Friday evening, the air was even cooler, just 64 degrees an adjusted altitude of 1,223 feet and a track temperature of only 74 degrees. Some Pro stock teams missed the set-up entirely, while others managed to maintain elapsed times close to those of their efforts earlier in the day. During the final pair of the session, Line once again commanded the quickest run of the pack with his 6.520, although unable to improve or grab the National Record.

"We were going for it," Line confessed of the record just after Friday's second session. "We thought we were but we were both way soft. You never know what tomorrow will bring. We still have a lot left."

Closely watching the weather predictions for the following day, Line felt Saturday's final qualifying would bring even better opportunities for lightening quick runs. "If we get dry and cool, with this racing surface, you could see the record fall."

After a rain delay that changed up Saturday's on-track schedule, Pro Stock teams would have all the 'good' air they could handle for session number three. With almost a crisp 62 degrees, an awesome adjusted altitude of just over one-thousand feet and a track temp hovering just over seventy degrees, records could very well fall. If only teams could get rid of the now high water grains.

Line and teammate Anderson did manage to make the two quickest runs of session three, with Anderson improving just two-thousandths on his best pass and line about where he was the evening before with his 6.518. Neither would change positions, remaining one and two, and it would be down to the final session to see if Line could grab the record for himself, and the bonus points that go with it.

The final session gave the teams a little more track temp to work with than they had in the two prior sessions and thus, hopefully a little more bite where they needed it down track. Only Greg Anderson would make a run consistent to his previous passes, Line missed the mark and while it was his slowest run of the event thus far [6.558], he safely held on to the pole for race day.

For the third consecutive race in a row, Jason Line claimed the number one qualifier in NHRA Pro Stock along with the $3,000 Low Qualifier bonus from K&N Engineering and the max points available per event for the K&N Horsepower Challenge.

Just about everything a Pro Stock driver could want during qualifying, except to be so close to a new ET record only for the opportunity to pass them by.

"We took a little more of a conservative approach in trying to see if we could do it," Line admitted following the end of qualifying. "We just didn't make all that good of a call and if you look at it, nobody else did either. We were just a little more off on our tune-up. I'm not sure whether we underestimated or overestimated the conditions. We went for it a lot more on that last run. We ended up shaking the tires. It just wasn't there this weekend."

"We thought we were aggressive but really we weren't it," Line confessed. "Today we got after it. We ended up slowing both cars down. We learned something today, so maybe that will help us."

Next for the NHRA professional teams is a stop at Texas Motorplex for the 26th annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals, in Ennis, Texas just outside of Dallas.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

K&N's Michelle Furr Has History Making Weekend During O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals

27 sept. 2011

NHRA Super Comp Driver Michelle Furr

During a weekend that only few can dream of experiencing, Michelle Furr drove both her Undercover dragster and her 1968 Camaro to the final round at zMax Dragway, nearby Charlotte, North Carolina for a Super Comp win and a Super Street runner-up during the Fourth annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals. Furr became only the second woman in NHRA history to go to two finals at the same event.

Michelle Furr drove her Super Comp Undercover dragster for the win at zMax Dragway

An IHRA racer for decades, Furr of Galax, Virginia only last year made the move to also obtain her NHRA competition licenses and began competing in both sanctioning bodies. This proved to be a smart decision for Furr, as she only had to wait a short while for it to pay off big time for her and her husband, Rick. Furr has found lots of success on the IHRA side during the course of her racing career, but with only a handful of attempts, she had yet to make an NHRA final of any type and was that ever all about to change for the K&N/Ohio Crankshaft racer.

"We completely changed our setup about three races ago," she said of her dragster. "We changed everything about how we leave, the throttle stop, everything. During time runs, I was a little nervous because I wasn't positive that I knew my ratio. We had every type of conditions to run in you could think of, headwind, tailwind, the altitude was going way up and down. It was kinda crazy, it really was."

Furr made it past Sikish in round one of Super Comp, after he left a little too early. This gave her a free pass down the track with another shot to test out her new throttle stop ratio and she never looked back. Round two would find Furr paired up with Lindsey Barker and a .013 advantage on the tree. Furr came out on the better side of a double breakout, just one-thousandth shy of a perfect run with her 8.899 to Barker's 8.893. She would then have to wait until mid-Sunday afternoon before she would take to the track for round three and prevail in another double-breakout win over Robert Edmonds.

The quarter final round was a squeaker with fellow K&N racer Ray Connolly. Both drivers trying to make the margin as narrow as possible at the stripe, with less than a thousand between them at the finish line. Furr's better .012 light and on the index 8.904, sent Connolly packing with his .032 and 8.884.

Over in Super Street, the 10.90 category, Furr was also blasting her way through the rounds. Again getting her lucky round right out of the gate after a redlight from her first round opponent, Furr ended up with some extra excitement in her 565 Chevy powered Camaro in round two. "I was pretty sure I had a better light than him [Edward Brooks] and when he went charging by me, I knew he had to be breaking out," she reflected. "So, I got on the breaks a little and it wasn't much, but that car got completely sideways on me. It was the closest I have ever come to being in a wreck. It was then I decided I wasn't using the breaks again in the Camaro over the weekend."

This is where the timeline started to get hairy for her and her husband. Furr pointed out, that as she got deeper into the rounds in both classes, it was a rather tough task keeping both cars ready to go and getting to the lanes when called, "We were pitted about as far away from the staging lanes as you could be over on the pro side. It was only Rick and I and to come back after a run, try to get the car cooled back down, throw the charger on for a second and get up to the lanes with the other car was really tough."

Furr went on in Super Street to make it by, Chuck Harris and Brian Funderburk and into her first of two finals where she would meet up with Dennis Hill. "Everything was so rushed to get both cars up to the lanes for the finals, we were doing the best we could and we certainly weren't messing around," she said. "I'm not blaming my thirty light in the Super Street final totally on the chaos of driving from over a half mile away to the lanes, after just jumping out of the other car and then being somewhat rushed, but I know it didn't help."

Furr admitted that she "totally put the Super Street final out of her mind" when she fired up in the lanes for her second final of the weekend, this time in Super Comp. She didn't have time to think about it. As she fired her dragster up, an official immediately shut her off in the lanes as she was dribbling a very small amount of water.

"Rick was already up on the line and I can't see what's going on or why they are shutting me off," she said. "A good friend of ours came over and saw it was just the overflow tank, we had not had a chance to drain it after the round before. So, he drained it, but now his hands are all wet and he can't get the little hose back on. By this time, Rick was back in the lanes to see what was going on and since his hands were dry, he put the hose back on. I fired up and the official looked over the car and nodded his head lightly, that it was OK."

Furr didn't let the moment distract her in the least and after leaving together, flat outdrove Shane Carr at the finish line, 8.904 to his losing 8.919 for her first ever NHRA National Event win.

"It's all still a dream," noted Furr of her tremendous weekend. "You want to make it to a final, you want to win and you think you can, but when it happens, it's like 'wow, is it really real?' I was just not going to think or over analyze anything this weekend and it really worked for me. As I went to pull out onto the track for the Super Comp final, I had hesitated just a bit. I see all these professional team members. I see all these people on the stands, they were packed and I thought to myself, this is what you have waited for your whole life. In my mind, I was like let's make this happen."

"The whole after race celebration was great," she exclaimed. "It was a lot of fun standing up there, talking to Leo [announcer] and getting that pewter Wally. I couldn't have done any of this without all the help from my husband Rick, and everyone who helps us with great parts and products for the cars. K&N is one of them and we have used K&N products for so many years on everything. Even our truck that pulls our 48' race trailer now has a cold air kit on it and that is awesome, just absolutely phenomenal the difference that it made. The generator, the cars, the truck, everything we have with a motor is protected by K&N filters."

"Always has been and always will be," the newest NHRA Super Comp National Event Champ added with a smile.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

2011 to 2016 Mercedes Benz 350 and 400 Models Get Optimized Performance

26 sept. 2011

Replacement Air Filter for 2011 to 2016 Mercedes Benz 350 and 400 models

Who invented the car? The answer isn't completely straightforward; Leonardo da Vinci was creating models for transport vehicles back in the 15th century. France's, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, built the first steamed propelled road vehicle in 1769. If we had to credit one inventor however, it would be Germany's Karl Friedrich Benz, who most experts suggest created the first true automobile in 1885.

Restriction Chart for 33-2985 Air Filter

Who invented the über-high-air flow replacement air filter on the planet? That's easy to pinpoint - K&N has been designing, manufacturing, and enhancing High-Flow Air Filters for anyone with a combustion engine looking to maximize performance since 1969.

Today it's simple to combine these two originators and increase performance on your Mercedes Benz SLK roadster in the process. K&N's 33-2985 OEM replacement air filter is designed to simply drop into the existing air box of various 2011 to 2016 Mercedes Benz 350 and 400 models (applications listed below). The designation SLK derives from the company's design mission to create a roadster that is at once Sportlich (sporty), Leicht (light), and Kurz (short). Introduced more than a decade ago as an answer to its European rivals in the luxury small roadster segment, the Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class is newly designed for 2012, and K&N's 33-2985 air filter embraces those changes.

K&N replacement air filters are washable and reusable and capable of running up to 50,000 miles before servicing is needed, depending on driving conditions. And where Mercedes Benz boasts one of the finest reputations for staying power and road dependability, K&N matches that by offering a million mile limited warranty on their replacement air filters for street vehicles. No other filter on the market can match K&N's history for quality, performance and protection. Period. Designed to increase horsepower and acceleration, K&N's 33-2985 lifetime air filter will be the last air filter your Mercedes Benz SL roadster will ever need.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

K&N 33-2985 fits the following Mercedes Benz Models:
2016 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6
2016 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ S400 HYBRID 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ ML350 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ GLK350 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ E400 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6
2015 MERCEDES BENZ C350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ SL350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ S400 HYBRID 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ ML350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ GLK350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ E400 HYBRID 3.0L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ E400 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ E300 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ CLS350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ C350 3.5L V6
2014 MERCEDES BENZ C300 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ SL350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ S400 HYBRID 3.5L V6 - Non-US, 306BHP
2013 MERCEDES BENZ S350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ R350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ ML350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ GLK350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ E400 HYBRID 3.0L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ E400 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ E300 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ CLS350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ C350 3.5L V6
2013 MERCEDES BENZ C300 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ SL350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ S350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ R350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ ML350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ GLK350 3.5L V6 - Non-US
2012 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ E300 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ CLS350 3.5L V6
2012 MERCEDES BENZ C350 3.5L V6
2011 MERCEDES BENZ SLK350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ S350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ ML350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ GLK350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ E350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ E300 3.5L V6
2011 MERCEDES BENZ CLS350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP
2011 MERCEDES BENZ C350 3.5L V6 - 306BHP

Ethan Myatt Embodies True Sprite of Racing and K&N

26 sept. 2011

The K&N backed 600cc Micro Sprints racer managed to stay consistent all year finishing in the top-five nine times.

In 2011 Ethan Myatt may not have crossed the finish line first as often as he would have liked, but by every other point of reference, the Clovis, California teenager personifies winning. The K&N backed high school student races 600cc Micro Sprints at Lemoore Raceway. A Micro Sprint is essentially smaller version of a full-sized Sprint Car. This season Myatt raced 15 point races and qualified in the top-ten 14 times, with nine of those being top-five. He also set fast time twice. Clearly he has skills.

Ethan Myatt positive outlook exemplifies the spirit of his favorite sponsor K&N.

"Although we didn't break the win column in 2011, we managed to walk away with a solid year," said Myatt. "I am truly disappointed in what we managed to do with the resources we have, and with what our team is capable of doing. I know that we can win races, and championships for that matter. It was quite difficult for me at the mid-season point and looking back to where we were at this time last year."

Myatt in fact admits that he "started to fall apart internally a little" at that point, and that's understandable. While most high school age kids feel they have enough on their plates dealing with grades and peer pressure, Myatt adds to that hours in the garage prepping his car, relentless competition on the track, and pursuing sponsors and then fulfilling their expectations. Yet, through it all few continue to wave the K&N flag any more enthusiastically, or are any greater ambassador than Myatt, regardless of whether it's from victory lane or a fourth place finish.

Despite having a difficult season Myatt still pulled off a solid fifth overall in the Lemoore Raceway championship.

"I know that all great drivers have a bad year every once-in-while, and I've begun to accept that, and it really motivates me in the biggest possible way to come back next year and move forward from there. As for what is left this year, we have two non-points races in November and that is all we have planned left for this year. As for what we have planned for next year, if I can find more sponsorship, I hope to build two complete cars, one for the stock series championship and I would like to build the other as a multi, so I can gain experience at other tracks, and learn to run with the fast guys at the same time."

Myatt says he feels 99% certain that his EM Motorsports team finished fifth overall in the Lemoore Raceway championship, his home track. "I don't have a definite answer until they make it official," adds Myatt. "I really want to thank Mr. Harris at K&N and every one of you who contributes to my racing career. I sincerely appreciate it as it helps me towards my goal of eventually moving up on the racing ladder."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Video - An Inside Look at Roland Sands Inspiration for Motorcycle Modification

26 sept. 2011

An Inside Look at Roland Sands Inspiration for Motorcycle Modification
K&N traveled to Roland Sands Design in Los Alamitos, California, to speak with shop owner Roland Sands about how he got started in the custom bike business and where he saw his company heading in the future. K&N got an inside look at the Roland Sands Design shop where expression is communicated through every motorcycle that passes through.