Why Ty Majeski’s Milwaukee Mile engine was disqualified by ASA

In real time, immediately after the Father’s Day 200 at the Milwaukee Mile, the engine builder for Ty Majeski and the Gearheadz Motorsports No. 91 wanted the engine to be torn down and sent to an engine dyno for verification.

Dewaine McGunegill felt so confident that everything would be clear that he encouraged this race for the inspection and helped with the teardown process because he wanted to send a message to the industry about the legality of the entire program.

Ultimately, McGunegill said the right bank compression on his engine was recorded at .2 over tolerance, with the left side meeting tolerance, leading to the disqualification.

Speaking to Short Track Scene on Thursday, McGunegill said it falls entirely on his shoulders and it was a data input error during its rebuild.

This car and engine won the Snowball Derby in December, passing a teardown and dyno in the week that followed, necessitating its rebuild. McGunegill says carbon buildup contributes to over-compression but that all engine constructors have to factor that into their builds and rebuilds, and that simply put, his math was wrong.

“There’s a mathematical formula,” McGunegill explained. “I had some new data that I input into that formula and it threw my formula off. That’s the .2. I’ve already started an internal audit of my process, but I can’t even blame it on any of my guys. It was a self-inflicted wound.”

McGunegill says he’s built over 1100 engines, and that doesn’t even include the rebuilds, and this is the one percent outcome. He said the law of averages dictates that this happens eventually but also was very adamant that the .2 right side compression was not a discernable difference maker in performance.

He says he endorsed the measurement process used by a third party engine builder, Robbie White, of RW Engines in Tennessee.

And again, he wanted the dyno to take place after this race.

“We wanted the inspection,” McGunegill said. “Ty is one of the absolute best racers out there and Toby is one of the absolute best car builders. You know how racers are; they always say ‘it has to be the engine’ and I wanted people to see that it was all Ty and Toby (responsible for the success) but I made a mistake.

“I can’t express enough how bad I feel.”

With that said, Majeski and Nuttleman have used MEP engines for a very long time and everyone is chalking it up as an unfortunate outcome and are preparing to tackle the Slinger Nationals together next month.