Karen Stalba A/Fuel Dragster
"Fastest Mom In South Jersey"

Subtitle

2016 Racing Season

Early Exit for Karen Stalba’s A/Fueler, Team Leaves Weekend More Optimistic—Virginia, 2016

Karen and family ran a great 5.32 pass at 268 miles per hour to qualify them 4^th out of 12 cars in Dinwiddie, Virginia at the Eastern Regional Top Alcohol class opener. After struggling and not qualifying at zMax Dragway for the Charlotte 4-wide Nationals, the qualifying pass at Virginia Motorsports Park was an eye opener.

“We had some tire problems in Zmax on our first pass, so we changed tires and adjusted the tune-up. Had we left the tune-up alone, we would have been in the show. Losing the 3^rd qualifier at zMax due to the weather did not help us,” said Karen. The team did not have time to test before heading out for back to back race weekends. “We went back to what was working at the end of the 2015 season, and it came back around to run the 5.32.” With the rest of the cars ahead in the 8 car field all in the 20’s Karen and team wanted to try to step up in Q2 since they were pretty securely qualified. Karen smoked the tires, and then going into 1^st round Saturday, the team was pretty confident. “We underestimated the air and weather conditions, and had a little too much power for Round 1.”

Next up will be some testing at Atco Dragway in the coming weeks before heading to Maple Grove Raceway for the second East Regional event on Memorial Day weekend. Karen feels confident that they are very close to getting back a consistent racecar. Special thanks to Bill at Mahle Aftermarket for the support and the encouragement, NGK Sparkplugs for providing us with the best plugs on the market, and to Lucas Oil Products, Tom Bogner, Jeff Kundratic for sticking with Stalba Motorsports and supporting our program. Thanks also go to the guys at Goodyear Tire for providing us with the great tires that were on the car for our 5.32 pass. Karen also cannot leave out Ernie Kendall of MX Industrial for his contribution and for being a great friend and cheerleader.

The weekend was still pretty successful overall, with Karen’s husband, Tom, reaching the final in Super Gas, and with son, Paul, winning the Wally in the 6-9 year old age group! Paul has been to two Division 1 Junior Dragster races and has won both of them! We’ve got a budding driver on our hands!