rhamlinii
15+ Year Contributor
- 660
- 12
- Nov 8, 2003
-
Baltimore City,
Maryland
Most definitely. For the record, I don't include Buschur's RWD 1G in any of this at all. Sean was first to 130, 140, and 150 mph markers. On 10/08/00 Sean ran 157 mph......Ten years ago!
Honestly, they didn't give up on the talon(at least not initially).....it caught fire at a race and that was a big roadblock.....the car had to be fully dissassembled, sent out to be alkaline dipped, fully repainted, and re-assembled. And it wasn't that simple. The Brake Man brakes(which were set up for DSM's with Extreme's help BTW)had to be sent out for rebuild amongst many other things. While the talon was down at that time.....they campaigned the Mirage. The car went 9.50's almost right out of the gate, but, wasn't immediately competitive with the fastest Honda's out there....so back to the talon. This is when John Shepherd started to creep up. But, in my opinion, the real setback was when Sean wanted to run the Pro Class and started campaigning the 4G63 powered tube chassis Hyundai Scoupe(2003-2004.) I think this is what really stunted the progression of the talon. I'm not at liberty to talk money here, but anyone that's been around this stuff knows what it takes to not only build one of these cars, but to campaign it in a series as well. STUPID, that's the word that comes to mind. What I'm saying, and I'm speculating here, not quoting, but, lots of money, time, and energy went into the tube car and to my knowledge the end result was not alot of success and contact with the wall that caused the car to burn. Also, keep in mind that Sean did come back out with the Talon and ran 8.63 which was definitely quick. I hear guys(Showdown) today talking about how they beat Seans 8.63.....so it must have been a big deal. To date there are only five AWD and two FWD cars quicker than Extreme---so even now they are still at the top. And for the record Showdown edged Sean's time by less than 1/100th.
The last thing I want to add in reference to all this: time needs to be considered here. There are plenty of guys running single digit ET's in DSM's these days, and no doubt it's impressive, no doubt a fast car is a fast car. But, Extreme was knocking on 8's door TEN years ago, and hit 8 seconds 9.5 years back. If in fact Sean had continued straight through without interruption, I feel that he would have been into the 7's about 2 years before Shep. In Shep's favor it has already been over four years since Shep went 7.70---11/10/06
I think he finally just got tired of doing what he was doing and decided to call it quits.
See above. Honestly, since DSMtimes.org doesn't have dates on the list I'm not sure when the talon ran last. I'm gonna say it was 2005-2006 when it ran 8.63. It was at the local track in Crofton, MD. Capitol Raceway. I'll see if I can figure that out...
Phil you're almost right. They had that fire, but remember the rules changed. They banned AWD cars in that class. Sean, at the time was more then a half of second faster then the closest car. He built the FWD car just to continue racing. The car was sold to a Maryland owner. It has been 10.30's with a 35r, from what I heard. it's a great looking car.