Seattle, WA 08-18-20, 2007: How do you know its a weekend in Seattle? IT'S RAINING! Being a native, Bucky Austin had to know that no date at Pacific Raceways is safe from rain - even in August. But try he did and in spite of a rather small car count would have had a nice, well rounded show consisting of Nostalgia Top Fuel and Funny Car, Fuel Altereds, A/Fuel dragsters, cacklecars, nitro Harley's and even a couple of jet funnies. The week leading up to the event was bright and sunny but come Friday the clouds starting rolling in and the forecast was for - what a shock in Seattle - rain.

Although some cars got test runs on Friday, Saturday's limited action was punctuated with showers that finally turned into a full blown rain storm. Without a lot of optimism, Austin rescheduled everything to Sunday but the weather would have none of that. Once again many racers had made the long trip to the Northwest only to lose to Mother Nature.

Why are we even doing a page on this deal? Well, I just didn't want the weekend to be a total loss - as in a card full of photos. There were some stout runs and neat people/cars on hand. So for those of you who were smart enough to stay home, here's what you didn't miss.

 

 

 

 

One of the cool things was the debut of Brendan Murry's new paint job on his car that was badly damaged in his colossal blower explosion and fire at Columbus. Still recovering from burns, Murry has Bill Dunlap in the car for the remainder of the 2007 season.

 

 

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Jim Green has his Assassin on hand and even squeezed in a fire-up.

 

 

 

 

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Arguably the hottest Nostalgia Funny Car at the moment is the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada based Pacemaker/Bubble-Up entry driven by veteran Terry Capp and tuned by none other than Roland Leong.

 

Capp in the seat and Leong on the wrenches - big budget - nice combination.

 

 

 

 

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There was no shortage of nitro fixes when the likes of the High Speed Motorsports top fuel car warmed up under the canopy. That yellow haze is 94% of the good stuff.

 

 

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These first two shots are of Claude Lavoie were not taken at Seattle but at Mission the week before where he had smashed the Nostalgia A-Fuel record.

 

 

And now the reason for the first two photos - at Seattle he slaughtered his own record with an unreal 6.14 at 235 mph! That would have easily qualified him for Top Fuel at Boise. Watch out for this team at the CHRR!

 

 

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Terry Capp pairs up with Dan Horan in this session. Incredibly, one and a half sessions of Funny Car got off but since Top Fuel was set at the end of each session rain came before they ever got to the waterbox.

 

Steve Romanazzi and Randy Walls on Saturday afternoon.

 

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One of two Top Fuel cars that did see the starting line was Bill Dunlap in Brendan Murry's car. This was his first run in the car so it was soft and Dunlap clicked it at half track.

 

 

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The nitro Harley's got a couple of shots at the track and several recoded 200+ runs.

 

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Closing out Friday was the two jets and you can see how many fans stuck around.

 

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Saturday morning was cloudy but dry but for whatever reasons the program was delayed until afternoon when the weather took a turn for the worse.

 

 

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Roland Leong is back having fun at the race track and has time to visit with the likes of Tom Shelar and Walt Stevens.

 

 

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Team Code Red had new T-shirts at Seattle but the message is unclear....

 

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The Tachman NFC came down from Canada and like most of the other floppers got on the track a couple of times.

 

 

 

 

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Mike McClennan made a test pass on Friday in Mike Fuller's car.

 

 

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The rain and other delays allowed a lot of bench racing and here's a group with enough stories to fill a book. Dave Jeffers, Walt Stevens, Jim Hume, Pat Foster and Pete Starrett.

 

 

 

Four of the best fabricators ever - Hume, Jeffers, Foster and Steve Pluger.

 

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Gary & Ena Eickmann had their trick A/Fuel car on hand and ran a respectable 6.40.

 

 

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A rare shot of hero driver Bill Dunlap WORKING!

 

 

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Steve Romanazzi got another pass in on Saturday before the rain came.

 

A-Fuel - nostalgia and not - got a session in on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

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The pits before and after.

 

 

 

 

By noon on Sunday most everyone was on their way home.

 

Related Story: Bucky's Playhouse