Eman, Team Aruba Getting Handle On 2012 XPS Season

On the Thursday before the Northeast Drags II at Maple Grove, Trevor Eman graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. With little time for celebration, Eman rewarded his years of hard work by going racing with the ADRL.

In the second qualifying session, Eman and the boys from Aruba laid down a solid 4.13

pass to place themselves in the field for the first time in 2012. Eman had a great run in the first round, but eventual winner Dean Goforth squeaked by with his 4.101 giving him a .001 margin of victory.

Despite his early exit from the weekend, Eman was pleased.

“I think we have a handle again on the racecar after being in left field for a while there. Unfortunately, we were not able to make it past the first round, but it sure was a great race. I am very happy for Dean and the Goforth family. He surely made a terrific comeback after experiencing such a setback with his health in the offseason. His doctors had told him that they did not recommend him racing this year, but he set out to prove them wrong, and he did that alright. And he did it in style.”

Despite being an unusual celebration for most college grads, there’s no place Eman would have rather been the weekend after graduation than at the track where he was surrounded by “race family”.

“I am very grateful to the whole racing community that recognized my graduation. I was getting congratulatory wishes all weekend, mostly from racers in the XPS class, but also from a bunch of the ADRL officials and even some people I did not know,” Eman said. “It was a wonderful feeling to have those people come up and congratulate me for this achievement.
“Throughout the years of racing Extreme Pro Stock, people like Bob Bertsch, Larry O’Brien and others would ask me at every race, how many years of school were left. They were always making sure to ask me if I had school under control, and it was great to finally get to a race and be able to tell them that I had graduated from school. I could see it in their face that they were proud and that meant a lot to me.

“Hopefully now that we have a handle on the car we can do better from here on and start accumulating some points to bridge that gap that was created by falling behind at the first two races. We have some great sponsors behind us with www.Aruba.com and Alltel Wireless, and we do our best by representing them in our pit area and with a colorful racecar, but it’s time to start representing them better on the aspect of race results.”