NEW 2010 MOUNTAIN MOTOR PRO STOCK for JEFF DOBBINS

Car Owner: Billy Dingman Racing
MOUNTAIN MOTOR PRO STOCK; "CARIBBEAN STYLE"

Over the last ten months, I have made three trips to a small island in the Caribbean by the name of Curacao. Although this sounds like a vacation getaway, I was brought down by the DeKort family to instruct there new race team on how to drive and race a mountain motor pro stocker.

Curacao is the largest of the three small A,B,C islands located

about 30 miles from the coast of Venezuela. It's sister islands are Aruba and Bonaire. The island of Curacao is about 170 square miles and has a population of about 150,000 people. It is a beautiful island with some of the world's best scuba diving. However, my favorite spot was the local drag strip, Curacao International Raceway ( CIR ). The raceway sits on 240 acres and is located on a plateau which is 50 meters above sea level and only 2 kms from the ocean. There is a constant 25kt breeze and the temperature stays around 85 degrees all year.
The DeKort family is no stranger to racing. Eddy, the father of the family, has been involved in some form of motor sports for the better part of his life. Son, Dito, campaigned an NHRA pro stocker in the late 90's, racing in Curacao and Aruba. After taking seven years off, the family decided to return to the sport with son Danny taking over the driving responsibilities. They purchased a car from NHRA champ

Jason Line and fitted it with a Jon Kaase prepared, 820cid Chevy hemi. Although they had racing experience, they had no idea about this combination.
My first two trips consisted of working all of the bugs out of this new combination and figuring out what parts they would need to run a mountain motor pro stocker. One of the big problems down there is that everything has to be flown in from the states. But as the old saying goes, the third time was a charm. On just the fourth full pass on the car, we posted the second quickest time in

CIR history, with a 6.59@210mph. The current track record is held by Pat Musi at a 6.53@216mph . We were very pleased with the run considering we are naturally aspirated, and the other guys run NOS. We spent the rest of the weekend working with Danny to get him up to speed with his new ride. He has been progressing very well and recently made a trip to the states to get some seat time behind the wheel of Dave Connolly's dragster.
I plan to make my next trip to Curacao the weekend of May 1st for the biggest race of the year in the Caribbean. Teams from Venezuela, Aruba, Porto Rico, Aruba, and Curacao will descend upon CIR to determine the champions. There will be over 20,000 spectators in attendance for this one race and I hope that we will be able to flex our
muscles for all of the fans. I think that the track record is in big trouble if we can put together a good run, but I'm sure that the other teams are coming with the same intensions including Frankie Brandao. Frankie is the current track owner and also owns the car that Pat Musi drives. There has been a long standing rivalry between the families and race teams of Brandao and DeKort. I'm sure this next chapter in there lives will not disappoint the fans.
In keeping with an old school tradition, most of the race teams have unique names. The DeKort's race team is "What The Hell" racing. The team members are, father Eddy, sons Dito and Danny, crew chief Eric Felix, clutch specialist Mark Hatt, Alexandre Perreira, Taid Perreira, Orlando Rijna, Luis

Bruges, Haim Voight, and Stephen Maduro. You can keep up with the action at CIR on the web at curacaodrag.com.

After spending so much time working with these guys, I feel that we developed a great friendship that will last a life time. I'm sure that we will continue to be friends and I will never forget the hospitality that they extended to me while I was visiting. I am sure that I will visit Curacao at some time for a real vacation. It is truly a beautiful place and I would highly recommend it if you are planning a get away.  JEFF DOBBINS