Courtesy Of: Rob Kozak (8-16-2005) ELMA, NY - With just over 100 points separating the top five cars in points heading into the Torco Race Fuels Northern Nationals the Eaton sponsored Mike Janis team felt this was the race for them to gain ground on the leaders. With point’s leader Shannon Jenkins failing to qualify for the event that left the door open for Janis to gain some ground.

Courtesy Of: Rob Kozak (08-07-05) HIGHLAND, MI -The Michigan based team of Keith "Skinny Kid" Engling and Brian Robbins will make their second IHRA appearance of 2005 at the 24th Annual Torco Race Fuels Northern Nationals held at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. Engling and Robbins just missed the field at the last IHRA event they attended in Milan, Michigan. This team normally runs under the NMCA sanctioning body at 29 percent overdrive on their supercharger. With this their second attempt at 20 percent both Engling and Robbins feel more confident about their chances. "Even though we didn't make the field at Milan we were ecstatic about our performance," said car owner and builder Keith Engling, owner of Skinny Kid Race Cars. "It was our first time at 20 percent and we basically started from scratch. Now we have somewhat of a baseline to work from, so I think we'll do OK." Robbins the veteran driver from St. Joseph, Michigan feels that the team's performance at Milan was just scratching the surface of their potential. "After the race we were able to look at all of our data and we know we had a couple of hundredths left on the table," said Robbins. "If we can get our clutch program a little tighter I think we'll have a good shot."

Courtesy Of: Rob Kozak
(07-24-05) CORDOVA, IL - For the second time in as many races the team of Brian Robbins and Keith "Skinny Kid" Engling faced off with Vinny Budano in the finals. Budano the Denso Pro Street Points leader won the last NMCA/Pro Edlebrock Series event when Robbins, who is second in points, red lit.

During Friday's first qualifying session at the 4th Annual Ross Pistons NMCA Hot Rod & Muscle Car Nationals in Cordova, IL Robbins was able to wrestle the nearly ton and a half white '72 Hurst Olds down the Cordova 1320 as their principle power plant an AJ 481X Olds let go just before the lights. Luckily the 6.782 pass was good enough to place Robbins solidly in the field. Robbins and Engling were force to sit out the second qualifying session as they made repairs to their engine and struggled to find the source of the problem.

The Michigan duo were back in action early Saturday after burning the midnight oil making repairs and finding the source of their engine woes, a plugged port nozzle. (A plugged nozzle interrupts the flow of fuel to a given cylinder causing a lean condition and ultimately a burnt piston.) With their engine woes solved Robbins and Engling took the final qualifying attempt as a chance to see what the track could hold. Evidently not much as Robbins blew the tires off at the starting line. "Only having two shots at the track put us a little behind so, we needed to know how far we could go on the tune up before eliminations started," said team owner and noted chassis builder Keith "Skinny Kid" Engling.

Courtesy Of: Rob Kozak (07-21-05) HIGHLAND, MI - After a runner-up finish at the 2nd Annual JE Pistons NMCA Hot Rod and Muscle Car Nationals in Martin. MI the duo of Keith Engling and Brian Robbins made plans to test their Allstar Performance sponsored 72 Hurts Olds against some of the IHRA's best Torco Race Fuels Pro Mods with a trip to 3rd Annual IHRA Dukes of Hazard Motor city Nationals in Milan Michigan. The Pro Edelbrock series regulars were at a bit of a disadvantage in Milan, not just because of the Olds lack of aerodynamics, mainly it was due to the difference in rules from Pro Street to Pro Mod. Two of the major differences are vehicle weight and blower overdrive. Minimum weight for the Olds in Pro Street trim is 2900lbs and blower overdrive is 29% while IHRA rules mandate a minimum weight of 2700lbs and only 20% overdrive. While the difference in rules were somewhat of a challenge to, car owner/chassis builder, Keith Engling he was able to make the best of what he had and nearly put his Skinny Kid's Race Cars built Olds into the tight field. We were able to take some of the weight out of the car but not enough to get down to 2700. The overdrive caused us some tuning problems but we learned from each run and it shows. Brian Robbins, driver of the Jan-Cen powered Olds, called the IHRA outing a "success" despite not qualifying. We improved on every run and were able to put down some career numbers for this team. I'd call that a success, said the 34 year old from Saint Joseph, Mi.