The final round of the 2010 MAHLE Engine Builder Showdown was all of the above. In a fierce neck-and-neck battle, the Pro Motor Engines team of Josh Hypes and Matt Jackling built a complete Chevrolet R07 race engine, defeating the Hendrick Motorsports team of Mike Maiwald and Scott Vester.
Building a winning race engine is challenging enough in the Charlotte-area shops that service top NASCAR?race teams. To do so in a head-to-head competition on a stage in front of God, television and everyone else in the blazing late afternoon Charlotte sunshine ratchets the intensity up that much more.
Consider some numbers:
11 – Consecutive years that MAHLE?has hosted the competition, a tiered, three-round contest designed to recognize the knowledge, skill and speed of professional engine builders who assemble special performance engines for NASCAR’s top levels of racing.
2 – Years that the finals have been held as part of “NASCAR?Rev’d Up,” a kickoff-event for All-Star Race Week in Uptown Charlotte, NC. Former crew chiefs Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds again hosted the competition.
4 – Consecutive years that Pro Motor Engines has won the competition.
6 – Teams that participated in this year’s competition. In addition to the finals competitors, teams from Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines (Greg Gunnell and Brian Price), Penske Racing Engines (Mark Cuzzen and Greg Welch), Roush-Yates (Mike Kasch and Jim Snyder) and Triad Racing Technologies (Ben Morris and Robert Scott) participated.
185 – Total fasteners to be installed and properly torqued in each engine. This number includes over 90 fasteners in the cylinder heads alone, including including 8 head bolts, 5 rocker bar bolts, 16 rocker arm nuts, 8 header bolts and 9 valve cover nuts on each side.
18:03 – Minutes and seconds it took the Pro Motor team to assemble its engine, start it and let it run for a mandatory one minute. This number bested last year’s record (19:27) by more than a minute.
20:01 – The time set by runners-up Maiwald and Vester. Although the assembly times were very close, the Hendrick team’s engine ran for 57 of the mandatory 60 seconds before stopping. The culprit??For the second year in a row, a disconnected fuel line caused the engine to fall silent.
$5,000 – The prize for finishing first. Although the check is appreciated, past competitors will admit that the bragging rights go a lot further around the race track.
“This competition is intense, no question about it,” said Hypes. “We are thrilled to win it again.”
“We gave it our best,” said Maiwald of the runner-up team. “Even though we lost, we still feel pretty good for making it to the final round.”
For more information about the competition, visit www.mahleclevite.com.
