{"id":25282,"date":"2016-03-18T09:29:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T16:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=25282"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:37:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:37:15","slug":"heartfelt-win-for-crew-chief-mike-guger-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/heartfelt-win-for-crew-chief-mike-guger-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartfelt Win for Crew Chief Mike Guger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leah<\/a><\/p>\n

When the win light flashed on in Leah Pritchett\u2019s lane in Phoenix at the NHRA\u2019s last race, it had been a long, long time since a win felt so good in the sport.\u00a0 The Bob Vandergriff racing team has come out the gate in 2016 swinging in the Top Fuel category and as the team was jumping up and down at the starting line with exhilaration, none was any happier than its popular crew chief, Mike Guger.<\/p>\n

The celebration continued onward with a universal gratitude among the entire NHRA community saluting one of their own.\u00a0 Guger has been around the sport of NHRA Drag Racing for most of his life, but most notably working with the master tuner, the late Dale Armstrong during his tenure at Kenny Bernstein\u2019s Budweiser King Funny Car and Top Fuel dragster teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome and real emotional to me just thinking about Dale [Armstrong] and after being so close so many times, finally able to finish it off,\u201d said Guger.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a big deal for me.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lifetime goal.\u00a0 It was real important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a part of the King Racing team for many years, he had plenty of opportunities to observe and soak in everything he could on the Funny Cars and Top Fuel Dragsters that he worked on with Armstrong along with all the other key personnel that Bernstein had built around him.<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a>
Crew Chief Mike Guger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat I learned from Dale was just a work ethic,\u201d Guger said.\u00a0 \u201cHow to conduct yourself; how to tune the car.\u00a0 Obviously, the guy was way smarter than I am.\u00a0 It was always \u2018Oh let\u2019s try that a little different\u2019.\u00a0 It\u2019s a different era now, but he made it look easy because he was the best and that\u2019s the key.\u201d<\/p>\n

The buildup to Pritchett\u2019s magical moment in Phoenix started in 2015 as Guger led then driver, Larry Dixon, to six runner-up finishes.\u00a0 As frustrating as it was seeing the other lane light up a half dozen times, Guger knew his combination was a winner and along with his co-crew chief Joe Barlam, the two put their heads together and kept the pressure on. \u00a0It was a long list of circumstances that prevented the BVR organization from heading to victory lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to keep trying,\u201d emphasized Guger.\u00a0 \u201cIt was not just one thing.\u00a0 We just couldn\u2019t get the planets to align.\u00a0 We tried several times and if you get enough shots at it, you\u2019re going to get it eventually.\u00a0 It certainly is not going to change anything except how learn to race.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an easy road in Arizona to the winner\u2019s circle for the Quaker State team.\u00a0 First off, Pritchett\u00a0smoked the tires first round against J.R. Todd literally driving the wheels nearly off her ride.\u00a0 She benefited against a rare red light from defending Top Fuel champion, Antron Brown, advancing to the semis to outrun Clay Millican with her 4.832 pass.<\/p>\n

\"Leah<\/a><\/p>\n

It was in the finals that Leah\u2019s desire proved more fateful for her cause by beating Brittany Force on a hole-shot (3.775 to 3.774) in the first all-female Top Fuel final round since 1982.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst round we smoked the tires and Leah did a great job of pedaling the car,\u201d said Guger.\u00a0 “Second round was pretty routine, just a round win, no issues.\u00a0 For the semifinals, we had a deal come up in the pits.\u00a0 We were warming it up and saw a bit of a fuel leak.\u00a0 We shut off and took off the valve cover off where a bunch of fuel had run off and we had a brief fire.\u00a0 It really wasn\u2019t that big of a deal.\u00a0 You have to be prepared for that kind of stuff.\u00a0 You can\u2019t let that defeat you.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to ready for anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s just of those deals.\u201d<\/p>\n

After getting back to the pits at that moment of solace reflecting back on the day when you realize what\u2019s just happened and it all begins to sink in, you would think the conversation would be active, but according to Guger is was just the opposite.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot much said, really, it was such kind of a relief for both of us,\u201d smiled Guger.\u00a0 \u201cThis had been a goal we both have had for a long time.\u00a0 By the time you get back after taking all the pictures, you\u2019re mentally exhausted.\u00a0 It takes a little while for it all to soak in for at least a day or two.\u00a0 The one thing I will say is the outpouring of seeing my phone blow up.\u00a0 People were texting me, congratulating on Facebook, all my social media was unbelievable and it really was.\u00a0 Everything was cool.\u00a0 I\u2019m loving every minute of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Guger couldn\u2019t forget the other half of the team co-led by clutch specialist, Joe Barlam.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s half the team, said Guger.\u00a0 \u201cI do the motor and he does the clutch.\u00a0 I try to give him as good of a motor I can every round.\u00a0 He\u2019ll ask me what\u2019s our power element is going to be like.\u00a0 He adjusts everything accordingly.\u00a0 He does a great job and I don\u2019t have to think about the clutch.\u00a0 It\u2019s all him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a><\/p>\n

Car owner, Bob Vandergriff, is a smart man letting his team\u2019s ebb and flow on race day be in the crew chief\u2019s hands.\u00a0 He trusts the guys running their teams and Guger appreciates letting those decisions fall on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really doesn\u2019t say anything once we get rolling,\u201d grinned Guger.\u00a0 \u201cHe just stands backs and watches.\u00a0 What\u2019s really cool about Bob is when the win light came on he was in the middle of it and then he stepped back and watched.\u00a0 He has been so supportive of me and Joe (Barlam, clutch specialist and co-crew chief) the whole way.\u00a0 We\u2019ve struggled along this year unfortunately with a few blow-ups and so forth and he never once said \u2018you\u2019ve got to get this thing worked out\u2019.\u00a0 He\u2019s been supportive all the way, all the way.\u00a0 More than you can ask for, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year with the Amalie Oil Gatornationals coming up, could the team see back-to-back wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to try and keep it rolling,\u201d said Guger.\u00a0 \u201cWe haven\u2019t been very easy on parts so far this season.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to try to get that reined in a little bit.\u00a0 We\u2019ll just keep trying to plug away in Gainesville.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking for our sweet spot and we\u2019re not quite there yet.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get it there.\u00a0 If Leah keeps driving like that and we keep putting good equipment under her, it will all be good.\u00a0 I have a lot of confidence in her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qualifying starts on Friday night at 9 p.m. EDT and Saturday at 6:30 on FOX Sports 1 with Sunday\u2019s live finals starting at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leah Pritchett’s crew chief, Mike Guger, finally celebrated the win he’s been working towards.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,3399],"tags":[82,1690,424,1943,2,4211,1552,4209,7,4210,73],"class_list":["post-25282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-nhra","tag-antron-brown","tag-bob-vandergriff-racing","tag-brittany-force","tag-clay-millican","tag-drag-racing","tag-joe-barlam","tag-leah-pritchett","tag-mike-guger","tag-nhra","tag-quaker-state","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/featured6.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-6zM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25288,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25282\/revisions\/25288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}