JA Crane Company brings luck to sponsored entries
(10-1-2012) NORWALK, OH – The JA Crane Company, headed by John Crane, has been known for a variety of sponsorships and motorsports involvement over the years. Crane’s most recent sponsorship endeavors racked up a string of awards at this past weekend’s ADRL Summit Racing Equipment Ohio Drags. With sponsorships covering four of the ADRL professional classes (Billy Glidden in Extreme 10.5, Casey Stemper in Extreme Pro Motorcycle, Doug Riesterer in Pro Nitrous and Brandon Pesz in Pro Extreme), the umbrella of teams had more than one chance to put JA Crane Co and affiliates in the spotlight, and that’s exactly what they did.
Brandon and Kim Pesz with their ’58 Kyrptonite Kustomz Corvette are the newest team to join the Crane banner, promoting PGT Trucking. It seems it was a great move on both sides as their first event together resulted in a number two qualifying spot (3.603 at 209.69MPH) and the new track MPH record at 211.23, just missing eclipsing the world record of 211.69. Unfortunately, mechanical problems in round one sidelined Pesz early.
The Ohio Drags was also Doug Riesterer’s first major outing with JA Crane Co, his ’68 Camaro proudly promoting the New Capitol Raceway. Riesterer scored the number one qualifying spot with a 3.781 at 193.82, a number that was also good enough for the new track ET record. Riesterer bested John Vergotz in round one, but was unable to stage after his burnout in round two, handing an easy pass to Randy Weatherford.
Casey Stemper and the Innovative Performance Racing Team in PXM also succumbed to mechanical problems. Despite qualifying well in the first session, Stemper suffered a major fire that would sideline him for the remainder of the weekend. Stemper went into the Ohio Drags number two in points and hopes to finish strong for JA Crane and PGT Trucking at the World Finals in Dallas, October 19-20.
The mechanical plague missed the JA Crane crew when it came to Billy Glidden in Extreme 10.5. Glidden qualified number two with a 3.923 at 188.96. Glidden then bested the competition with a combination of great elapsed times and the driving prowess he’s known for. In the final, a hole shot scored Glidden the victory by just .009.
With the weekend of successes, Crane is making plans to announce further sponsorship for all four teams.
“It was a dream weekend,” told Crane. “I was on cloud nine. It’s always been a goal of mine to have four teams under one sponsor and it looks like that might come true. I’ve ordered a new chassis with a Cadillac CTS body. You never know, there could be two Cranes driving state-of-the-art new Pro Nitrous rockets in 2013. That’s just a teaser for next year, but what we have going on with the current teams is very exciting, and I hope they’ll be the makings of a ‘Super Team’ for next year!”
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