My pick for Racer of the Week is Kelly Bettes from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Kelly is the driver of Jett Racing's 4-cylinder turbocharged Nissan utility pickup. She won the Jamboree at Willowbank last weekend and was runner-up at the Winternationals but for being a young lady, she has an extensive drag racing background. I hope to be able to touch on most if not all of it tonight.
Kelly Bettes grew up in an outstanding Australian drag racing family. Her parents and her brother Scott have been supportive and encouraging to her all her life. She started racing in Junior Dragster at the age of 10 and raced that class until she was 17; she's raced in the Modified Dragster for another 5 years, in her BB Chevy-powered Undercover Dragster, She managed a Quickest time of 7.40 @ 180mph. In the Modified Bracket Kelly has won an Australian Championship, 2x Divsional Championships and the John Storm Memorial Trophy, the highest achievement in sportsman racing.
Kelly's sponsor backing with the modified dragster was Performance Wholesale, Speedflow Products, Noonan Race Engineering and Castrol Edge.
She was the 2009/2010 National Modified Champion and holder of multiple national event and local event wins.
Jett Racing is Australia's Largest & Fastest 4 cylinder drag racing team...
FAMILY is the word that encompasses Jett Racing: Family built, Family based, Family backed, Family supported and Family owned.
The team was built around and named after the eldest son of Collin & Katie Willshire. They are backed by the best crew in the business including crew chief, engine builder, tuner and driver from Definition Motorsports, Mr Rob Novak.
Jett Racing has a long and successful drag racing history with multiple event wins and track records. They are proud of their many trophies and awards to the "Best Dressed Crew" at most major events where their track professionalism and presentation is just as important as delivering results on the track.
These cars are flat-out awesome. Last weekend, Kelly ran consecutive 7.2 second ETs at 180+ mph with that Nissan Ute. The engine is a turbocharged 4-cylinder Nissan with a modified cylinder head, a cam and a kick-ass trans and drivetrain. Check out JettRacing.com/au. It is an outstanding website and the Pro Compact car, also on 4 cylinders, runs 6.4 second ETs at 225 mph.
Unbelievable what they are getting out of these cars!
Jett Racing possess one of the cleanest and best equipped workshop sheds in the game, with a dust and noise free engine building room where ultimate care is taken to build the toughest and most powerful 4cyl engines in the country.
They have demonstrated a history of sponsorship and will continue to sponsor many events, classes and track signage to help propel the sport into its future.
Kelly would like to say a big Thank You to the following people and Businesses who support the team:
Phil from Performance Wholesale Australia, Rob Novak from Definition Motorsport, Rob from Turbo by Garrett, John from Turbo Supplies, Troy Burnside from Motul, Rob Clark, Ron Shearer from K1 Technologies, JE Pistons, Craig Liberty at Liberty's gears, MoTec, Sticks from Quickbitz, Steve and his team at Jack Bro's and Dave Reid from Drag Photos!
All these people give the team a lot of support and help along the way to achieve great things!
That's Kelly Bettes, Racer of the Week. Congratulations and best wishes to Kelly from Racin' and Rockin' for a very bright and successful future, Kelly.
Special congratulations to Kyle Cultrera, a Racer of the Week last month. Kyle won comp eliminator yesterday at the Divisional event at E-Town. Way to go, Kyle! Keep those wins coming!
I'm really looking forward to going to the DragList Nationals, folks. For me, it's more than a drag racing experience, although BP told me we have a VIP suite reserved for the races next Saturday. I'll be 65 years old in a couple of weeks, and I've never been East of New Orleans in my life. Not just that, but I'm going to see Washington, DC! That is a lifelong dream that I was never able to fulfill, and here it comes, man. I look forward to seeing the DragList family and hanging out with my brothers and sisters that I've been so blessed to know for the last 11 years. It's going to be a wonderful weekend, and I'm more stoked about this than I have been about anything that I can remember since the last time I went in 2009. I want to wish everybody a safe trip if you're going, and I'll be up for anything once we're all together.
The music segment for tonight...what can I say. We played 3 full gigs in 40 hours last weekend, and it wasn't over for me. From the hot rod show gig Sunday, I went to a jam session at my buddy Kim's house in Alvin. I was tired, but I made a committment to jam at Kim's on Sunday evenings, and I went and played. It's a creative release that I don't get to experience any other time. We worked on my '62 Gibson Melody Maker, which I've had for 40 years, and it's getting closer to being restored to playing condition. My plan is to use it for slide, but if I get the intonation right after working on the bridge, I might use it full-time. The Pee Wee Bowen Band is hitting on all cylinders and we're knockin' 'em dead at all of our gigs, but we have one weekend a month off, and that's where I plan to put Johnny B and the Wildcats. We're still talking about who we're going to have for a rhythym section, we haven't settled on one particular guy or another yet, but we're playing every Sunday and that's all that matters to me for now. I'll keep y'all posted on our progress. We have 8 songs recorded for our CD, 4 more to go.
Y'all be sure to tune in tomorrow night at 7 PM Eastern for Racing Through History on RacersReunion Radio. It's a Goat Rodeo you don't want to miss! Everybody rock on...I'll see y'all next week.