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Russell Morseman III Takes The Checkered Flag at Blackrock Speedway

After a recent feature race at the Blackock Speedway, Russell Morseman crawls out of his car as the victor.
After a recent feature race at the Blackock Speedway, Russell Morseman crawls out of his car as the victor.
Russell Morseman III and the Morseman Racing Team recently pulled into the Blackrock Speedway, at Dundee, New York, with high expectations and confidence, two very important components of success. The team had not earned a checkered flag in a feature since the Addison, New York native experienced his first career win in the Northeast Dirt Modified Division during the early weeks of May. On the other hand, they had been finishing strong for the past couple of months. That said, they were aware that the time was right for another victory, and there couldn't be a better time than the present, as the final season race and points championship night at this particular venue was drawing near.

Starting fifth in his heat, Russell Morseman III muscled his way to the third place position prior to crossing the finish line, which in turn lent to a fifth position start in the feature as well.
Russell Morseman, of Addison, New York, recently earned his first feature win in the Northeast Dirt Modified Division at the Blackrock Speedway.
Russell Morseman, of Addison, New York, recently earned his first feature win in the Northeast Dirt Modified Division at the Blackrock Speedway.
After making a few minor adjustments, the driver embarked upon a twenty lap battle on what he and his crew has considered as their home track throughout the 2011 season. "Our confidence level was pretty high after the heat, because of where I started" recalled Morseman. "We made some more adjustments to the set-up and they seemed to work really well."

After a couple of restarts, at the waving of the green flag, Morseman came out with an awareness that the outcome of the race depended a great deal upon avoiding any mistakes. That in mind, he began working his way to the very front of the pack. In fact, the driver passed Fran Hilton on the fifth lap to take the lead. Although, Morseman never felt challenged throughout the remainder of the race, he did hear the screaming engine of Donnie Lawson behind him.

Referring to the win, Morseman said, "It felt Awesome, like always. I feel that the competition at Blackrock is the highest in our area." When asked to share his strong point as a driver, Morseman continued, "I feel that I am very smooth and am getting better and better with every track and in every race of which I compete."
Russell Morseman leads the pack during a recent race at the Blackrock Speedway, in Dundee, New York.
Russell Morseman leads the pack during a recent race at the Blackrock Speedway, in Dundee, New York.


Russell Morseman, may be the guy who spectators credit with the win upon earning the checkered flag, but the driver is acutely aware that although his driving skills are an essential element, his team plays a huge role in his overall success. When asked about his team, Morseman said, "I feel that my race team is considered one of the top teams in the area."

As one might suspect, the driver and his team are strong advocates of proper maintenance, and in turn depend on K&N products to keep the internal components of their engine clean and well lubed. "I use K&N filters on my racecars," he explained. "I use their air filters, oil filters, cover breathers, and all the K&N prefilters and cleaners. We've been using them since I started racing, six years ago."

Along with a good team and proper maintenance, Russell Morseman finds his sponsors and fans of great importance. "I would like to thank all of my sponsors and fans," shared the driver. Referring to his recent win, he continued, "It was important, but mainly it was nice to go into the off-season with a win still fresh in your mind. I can't wait until next season. I really do believe we will be contenders for the championship as we have been finishing strong over the past month-and-one-half. I believe it's going to be a great one."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

With 13 Wins Already and Two Championships 2011 Marks Record Season for Andy Forsberg

The Civil War Championship is Forsberg second for 2011 and it's F&F's 5th overall Championship.
The Civil War Championship is Forsberg second for 2011 and it's F&F's 5th overall Championship.
It's the middle of September, plenty of time left for Andy Forsberg to further distinguish his season to remember, yet with 13 total victories thus far, and one championship already locked up, 2011 is unquestionably a benchmark year for Forsberg Racing (see update).
Piloting his family owned A&A Motorsports No. 92 Forsberg drove to three 410 victories at Silver Dollar Speedway.
Piloting his family owned A&A Motorsports No. 92 Forsberg drove to three 410 victories at Silver Dollar Speedway.


"Winning 13 races so far this year has been a great accomplishment for me and the team, as this is the most wins I have had in any one season," Forsberg told K&N Race News. "I hope to add more by the end of the season."

The K&N sponsored driver's wins break down as follows; three 410 victories in Chico, California at the Silver Dollar Speedway in his A&A Motorsports No. 92 car. He has one 360 win in the Forsberg family owned No. 92, also in Chico. Five 360 Civil War wins in the F&F X1 at various tracks around northern California, and four more 360 point race wins at Placerville Speedway in Placerville CA in the F&F X1. Forsberg's 13th win came in the final 410 points race of the Silver Dollar Speedway season, where he missed winning that championship by two points.

Have you made your peace with missing the 410 championship by two points?
"Yes I have made peace with it, we knew from the beginning of the season we were not going to be able to compete for the 410 Championship at the Silver Dollar Speedway, as our 360 Civil War Series had a conflicting race with the Friday night shows in Chico. So at the end of the season, when we still had a chance at the Championship, I was pretty proud of our team for just being in the hunt. We were bummed to lose it by only the two points, but we are proud of the year we had at Chico and what we were able to accomplish with making up so many points on the leader and to even be that close."
Even though he did finish strong in Calistoga, Forsberg felt great about being able to compete against USAC 410 teams driving his non-wing 360.
Even though he did finish strong in Calistoga, Forsberg felt great about being able to compete against USAC 410 teams driving his non-wing 360.


You barely missed one but you clinched another, how does it feel winning your 10th career driving championship?
"It feels great to win any championship - I can't believe I have won 10 though. Growing up and hearing the announcer talk about a driver being a six or seven time champion, I remember thinking 'Wow that's amazing, so many championships.' So right now to have 10 of them is still pretty unbelievable. I feel real good about this one for another reason though, during the winter when the F&F X1 and I were in negotiations about the 2011 season, I told them I thought we could win 10 races, and both the Placerville and Civil War Championships. As of now we already have the Placerville 360 Sprint Championship, and we are at nine wins, and leading the points in the 360 Civil War Series with just two races to go."

Update us on how it went in Placerville and the Louie Vermeil Classic?
"The final points race at Placerville was exciting for us, as we already had the Championship clinched the prior weekend so there was no pressure. We started 5th in the A main event, and on the last lap I made a move on the leader Stephen Allard coming off turn 4 on the top, things got real tight, we made contact, but we both were able to keep going. He won and we got second, but it was definitely an exciting race to finish off the year at Placerville."
Forsberg's Placerville Speedway Championship marked the 10th overall championship of his career.
Forsberg's Placerville Speedway Championship marked the 10th overall championship of his career.


"The Louie Vermeil Classic in Calistoga, California was almost a great night for us; we took our family owned No. 92, 360 to race against the USAC teams running their 410's. We were seventh quick, and in our heat race I made a last lap pass on the 4th place car coming off turn 4 to get the transfer spot into the A main event. We started 3rd in the main event, and we were nervous starting up there with the big dogs, not sure if we could hold them off on the big track. At the start of the race I was stuck on the bottom and got shuffled back to around 9th, but I was able to get to the top and started pushing back towards the front. I made my way back up to the 5th spot, which we would have been very happy with, but with only 7-laps to go, I ran over something on the track and cut down my right rear tire. We were disappointed with not finishing the night well, but to run at Calistoga with non-wing 360, against the USAC guys and be competitive felt great."

K&N Race News Update:
As we were completing this story the press release came in that Forsberg has indeed won his second championship of 2011 this weekend. The Civil War Championship was F&F's second title and their 5th overall Championship, and for Forsberg it was his 6th Civil War Championship and 11th overall Championship overall.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

K&N Adds New Reusable Air Filter for Big Diesels to Their Heavy Duty Air Filter Line

Heavy Duty Commercial Grade Diesel Air Filter
Heavy Duty Commercial Grade Diesel Air Filter
Every diesel owner knows that high quality parts are necessary for their vehicles to run at peak performance. Traditional diesel truck air filters are not made to last long periods of time.  Their use is limited either by a set number of miles or depending on how dirty and restrictive they become.  They are thrown away and purchased again and again.  That is why K&N has developed its new line of Heavy Duty commercial grade diesel filters that are washable and reusable. For over 40 years K&N has brought power and performance to vehicle owners. Now you can take this world famous performance to your commercial class 6 to 8 trucks or larger recreational diesels.

Redesigned with a new hybrid filtration media, K&N Heavy Duty air filters do not require oil and they offer excellent filtration with low restriction.  In addition to these features, K&N HD air filters are washable and reusable with the ability to handle both power washers and compressed air for fast cleaning times.

"The 38-2028S is designed as an axial seal filter," says Dino Marutsos a product manager for K&N. "[Meaning] the filter itself has its own molded in gaskets for better sealing and extra protection." Dino also reported that this is contrary to some styles of disposable filters which used glued gaskets to create the necessary airtight seal of the filter. The 38-2028S is a standard flowing filter in that air flows from outside the pleats into the center of the filter then it exits through the filter base and eventually into the engine.  This air filter allows air to flow with little restriction through its lofted synthetic media while filtering particles and dust that could cause harm to your engine. The 38-2028S is backed with a 3 year, 300,000 mile warranty and requires servicing when your filter restriction gauge indicates it is time to clean.

This easy to install heavy-duty air filter fits several types of tractors, loaders, cranes, compressors, mining and earth moving equipment but the best way to determine if it will work for your needs is to look at your existing air filter and cross reference it to find the right K&N heavy duty air filter.  The 38-2028S is made as a replacement to the following list of disposable air filters:

Baldwin PA2456
Carquest 87546
Donaldson EAF5049
Donaldson P181049
Donaldson P182049
Fleetguard AF4090
Fleetguard AF891
Fleetguard AF891M
Hastings AF511
Luber-Finer LAF6453
Luber-Finer LAF6453MXM
Napa 2546
Purolator A73014
WIX 42546

See the K&N Heavy Duty Air Filter web page fore more information on these large diesel air filters.  Find K&N products for your street vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Jason Line Powers His Way to Fifth NHRA Pro Stock Pole of 2011 at Concord

NHRA Pro Stock Driver Jason Line
NHRA Pro Stock Driver Jason Line
Now considered his home track, zMax Dragway, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been very good to NHRA Pro Stock Driver Jason Line over the last three national events held there. Line was number one qualifier one year ago, again earlier this season and pounded his way to the top again during the latest event held at the pristine facility for the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.
Jason Line at the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.
Jason Line at the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.


With the feat, Line has now moved ten points ahead of teammate, Greg Anderson in the 2012 K&N Horsepower Challenge. He now narrowly holds down the number one spot for the prestigious annual shootout in which the top seven qualified drivers, along with a fan voted eighth, vie for the biggest single payday in all of NHRA Pro Stock and the $50,000 championship check.

During the first session for Pro Stock late Friday afternoon, Allen Johnson and K&N's Mike Edwards both laid down good 6.54 passes, only within a thousandth of a second a part, but it would be the final pair, with Line and Anderson, which would not only set the bar but set it real high for the field. Line posted a 6.510 and Anderson slid in right behind him for the early number two spot, only five thousandths behind him. Line's ET was not only a zMax track record, but the first part of what could turn out to be a new NHRA Pro Stock National Record, if he could make it into the 6.40's.

When the professional fields rolled to the lanes for the second session of qualifying mid-Friday evening, the air was even cooler, just 64 degrees an adjusted altitude of 1,223 feet and a track temperature of only 74 degrees. Some Pro stock teams missed the set-up entirely, while others managed to maintain elapsed times close to those of their efforts earlier in the day. During the final pair of the session, Line once again commanded the quickest run of the pack with his 6.520, although unable to improve or grab the National Record.

"We were going for it," Line confessed of the record just after Friday's second session. "We thought we were but we were both way soft. You never know what tomorrow will bring. We still have a lot left."

Closely watching the weather predictions for the following day, Line felt Saturday's final qualifying would bring even better opportunities for lightening quick runs. "If we get dry and cool, with this racing surface, you could see the record fall."

After a rain delay that changed up Saturday's on-track schedule, Pro Stock teams would have all the 'good' air they could handle for session number three. With almost a crisp 62 degrees, an awesome adjusted altitude of just over one-thousand feet and a track temp hovering just over seventy degrees, records could very well fall. If only teams could get rid of the now high water grains.

Line and teammate Anderson did manage to make the two quickest runs of session three, with Anderson improving just two-thousandths on his best pass and line about where he was the evening before with his 6.518. Neither would change positions, remaining one and two, and it would be down to the final session to see if Line could grab the record for himself, and the bonus points that go with it.

The final session gave the teams a little more track temp to work with than they had in the two prior sessions and thus, hopefully a little more bite where they needed it down track. Only Greg Anderson would make a run consistent to his previous passes, Line missed the mark and while it was his slowest run of the event thus far [6.558], he safely held on to the pole for race day.

For the third consecutive race in a row, Jason Line claimed the number one qualifier in NHRA Pro Stock along with the $3,000 Low Qualifier bonus from K&N Engineering and the max points available per event for the K&N Horsepower Challenge.

Just about everything a Pro Stock driver could want during qualifying, except to be so close to a new ET record only for the opportunity to pass them by.

"We took a little more of a conservative approach in trying to see if we could do it," Line admitted following the end of qualifying. "We just didn't make all that good of a call and if you look at it, nobody else did either. We were just a little more off on our tune-up. I'm not sure whether we underestimated or overestimated the conditions. We went for it a lot more on that last run. We ended up shaking the tires. It just wasn't there this weekend."

"We thought we were aggressive but really we weren't it," Line confessed. "Today we got after it. We ended up slowing both cars down. We learned something today, so maybe that will help us."

Next for the NHRA professional teams is a stop at Texas Motorplex for the 26th annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals, in Ennis, Texas just outside of Dallas.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

K&N's Michelle Furr Has History Making Weekend During O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals

NHRA Super Comp Driver Michelle Furr
NHRA Super Comp Driver Michelle Furr
During a weekend that only few can dream of experiencing, Michelle Furr drove both her Undercover dragster and her 1968 Camaro to the final round at zMax Dragway, nearby Charlotte, North Carolina for a Super Comp win and a Super Street runner-up during the Fourth annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals. Furr became only the second woman in NHRA history to go to two finals at the same event.
Michelle Furr drove her Super Comp Undercover dragster for the win at zMax Dragway
Michelle Furr drove her Super Comp Undercover dragster for the win at zMax Dragway


An IHRA racer for decades, Furr of Galax, Virginia only last year made the move to also obtain her NHRA competition licenses and began competing in both sanctioning bodies. This proved to be a smart decision for Furr, as she only had to wait a short while for it to pay off big time for her and her husband, Rick. Furr has found lots of success on the IHRA side during the course of her racing career, but with only a handful of attempts, she had yet to make an NHRA final of any type and was that ever all about to change for the K&N/Ohio Crankshaft racer.

"We completely changed our setup about three races ago," she said of her dragster. "We changed everything about how we leave, the throttle stop, everything. During time runs, I was a little nervous because I wasn't positive that I knew my ratio. We had every type of conditions to run in you could think of, headwind, tailwind, the altitude was going way up and down. It was kinda crazy, it really was."

Furr made it past Sikish in round one of Super Comp, after he left a little too early. This gave her a free pass down the track with another shot to test out her new throttle stop ratio and she never looked back. Round two would find Furr paired up with Lindsey Barker and a .013 advantage on the tree. Furr came out on the better side of a double breakout, just one-thousandth shy of a perfect run with her 8.899 to Barker's 8.893. She would then have to wait until mid-Sunday afternoon before she would take to the track for round three and prevail in another double-breakout win over Robert Edmonds.

The quarter final round was a squeaker with fellow K&N racer Ray Connolly. Both drivers trying to make the margin as narrow as possible at the stripe, with less than a thousand between them at the finish line. Furr's better .012 light and on the index 8.904, sent Connolly packing with his .032 and 8.884.

Over in Super Street, the 10.90 category, Furr was also blasting her way through the rounds. Again getting her lucky round right out of the gate after a redlight from her first round opponent, Furr ended up with some extra excitement in her 565 Chevy powered Camaro in round two. "I was pretty sure I had a better light than him [Edward Brooks] and when he went charging by me, I knew he had to be breaking out," she reflected. "So, I got on the breaks a little and it wasn't much, but that car got completely sideways on me. It was the closest I have ever come to being in a wreck. It was then I decided I wasn't using the breaks again in the Camaro over the weekend."

This is where the timeline started to get hairy for her and her husband. Furr pointed out, that as she got deeper into the rounds in both classes, it was a rather tough task keeping both cars ready to go and getting to the lanes when called, "We were pitted about as far away from the staging lanes as you could be over on the pro side. It was only Rick and I and to come back after a run, try to get the car cooled back down, throw the charger on for a second and get up to the lanes with the other car was really tough."

Furr went on in Super Street to make it by, Chuck Harris and Brian Funderburk and into her first of two finals where she would meet up with Dennis Hill. "Everything was so rushed to get both cars up to the lanes for the finals, we were doing the best we could and we certainly weren't messing around," she said. "I'm not blaming my thirty light in the Super Street final totally on the chaos of driving from over a half mile away to the lanes, after just jumping out of the other car and then being somewhat rushed, but I know it didn't help."

Furr admitted that she "totally put the Super Street final out of her mind" when she fired up in the lanes for her second final of the weekend, this time in Super Comp. She didn't have time to think about it. As she fired her dragster up, an official immediately shut her off in the lanes as she was dribbling a very small amount of water.

"Rick was already up on the line and I can't see what's going on or why they are shutting me off," she said. "A good friend of ours came over and saw it was just the overflow tank, we had not had a chance to drain it after the round before. So, he drained it, but now his hands are all wet and he can't get the little hose back on. By this time, Rick was back in the lanes to see what was going on and since his hands were dry, he put the hose back on. I fired up and the official looked over the car and nodded his head lightly, that it was OK."

Furr didn't let the moment distract her in the least and after leaving together, flat outdrove Shane Carr at the finish line, 8.904 to his losing 8.919 for her first ever NHRA National Event win.

"It's all still a dream," noted Furr of her tremendous weekend. "You want to make it to a final, you want to win and you think you can, but when it happens, it's like 'wow, is it really real?' I was just not going to think or over analyze anything this weekend and it really worked for me. As I went to pull out onto the track for the Super Comp final, I had hesitated just a bit. I see all these professional team members. I see all these people on the stands, they were packed and I thought to myself, this is what you have waited for your whole life. In my mind, I was like let's make this happen."

"The whole after race celebration was great," she exclaimed. "It was a lot of fun standing up there, talking to Leo [announcer] and getting that pewter Wally. I couldn't have done any of this without all the help from my husband Rick, and everyone who helps us with great parts and products for the cars. K&N is one of them and we have used K&N products for so many years on everything. Even our truck that pulls our 48' race trailer now has a cold air kit on it and that is awesome, just absolutely phenomenal the difference that it made. The generator, the cars, the truck, everything we have with a motor is protected by K&N filters."

"Always has been and always will be," the newest NHRA Super Comp National Event Champ added with a smile.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.