Lyle Greenberg and Cone Hunter Motorsports Checks In!

I realize that I have been pretty good at racing updates on social media, but I have dropped the ball on email updates for my friends who are not on social media. Apologies if you are getting this and have already seen some or all before this … I had some friends request I do an update the “old fashioned” way via email.

I sold the “Cone Hunter” Fuel Altered at the end of 2016 and spent all of 2017 building a Nitro Nostalgia Funny Car. It has been obvious to most of my family and friends that I wanted to try a nitromethane powered car sometime before I give up the racing foolishness. We finished the car at the end of January this year and had a very successful test session at Albuquerque Dragway in March. We then went to Tucson for more testing in April. We finally made our competition debut two weeks ago at the “Funny Car Chaos” event in Amarillo, TX. There were 16 funny cars in attendance and we qualified #6 in the 8-car “A” field. From there we knocked off the #2 and #3 qualifiers to advance to the Final Round. Though we didn’t win, a runner-up in our first race seems very acceptable. We had the quickest and fastest nitro car at the event.

Running a nitro car is a whole different level of work, expense, and attention. I have been thrilled with the hundreds of pictures, stories, and comments on social media complimenting us on both the fabulous look of the car and the good performance we showed. This has translated into opportunities and we have a very busy late-June and July on tap.

On June 30th we will be displaying the “Cone Hunter” Nitro Funny Car in the Clovis Draggin Main Street show in Clovis, NM. We (along with some other nitro powered cars) will each do three startups and show the folks in Clovis what all the fuss is about nitro.

On July 7 we will be running a two-run match race against Ray Stringer (New Mexico’s only other supercharged nitro funny car) at Albuquerque Dragway. This will be the first nitro funny car match race in Albuquerque in almost 40 years. I want to extend an invitation to my Albuquerque friends to come out to the track in Albuquerque, come by the trailer to visit, maybe buy a t-shirt and watch us run. This is most likely the only appearance we will make in ABQ this year.

On July 14 we will be running a two-run match race against Jim Maroney in Grand Junction, CO. I hope that some of my Colorado friends will come watch us!

Below are some pictures of the new car. Here is a link to the story and videos from the Funny Car Chaos race in Amarillo.

Race Story on Competition Plus – http://competitionplus.com/drag-racing/news/funny-car-chaos-is-a-hit-in-amarillo

Final Round Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK_rwsMOEEc

Final Round Video (Drone Aerial) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM811d0IdAI&t=5s

Greenberg at Amarillo Video (great aerials and top end videos) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6phvu5bSrvk This is a fabulous custom made video by my friend Bill Moyer

This is by far the prettiest race car I have ever had. I commissioned noted drag racing artist David Carl Peters to design the paint scheme using my “Cone Hunter” theme and told him I wanted it to look like it just came out of Circus Paints (a noted east coast funny car paint shop in the 1970’s) in 1978. PPG became a huge part of the project as they supplied paint from their “Vibrance” line of colors. Jim and Sean Guthrie at Car Crafters in Albuquerque took on the project of preparing and applying the paint. Their custom painter, David McLevitz, did an incredible job making the car truly show car quality.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine doing a project like this without the support of our marketing partners:

AMSOIL/Nancy Greenberg
Car Crafters
PPG
Cabinet Concepts
SunCo Equipment and Supply
High Mesa Frames
Yearwood Performance
Homes by Labbate
MAC Hydraulic
Stinson Metal Fab
Synergy Coatings
Waterjet Cutting/Rhino Board
WJR Photography

Did I mention that this nitro deal is a lot of work? It takes a dedicated team to do this, including Butch Blackberg, Rick Schouman, Russ Marr, Rachel Greenberg, Billy Mueller, Sean, Jen & Connor Guthrie, Wayne MacLeod, Chris & Tiffany Stinson, Alan Skinner, and Chris Schouman.

If you are on social media, follow us on Facebook at Cone Hunter Racing and/or my personal “Lyle Greenberg” page and on Instagram at “lylejg”.

Thanks!!!

Lyle Greenberg