Top Fuel Eliminations - Round Two
2:22 p.m. Sunday: Still under sunny skies and ideal track conditions round two hit the track.

 

Then there were 8. First pair of round two matched Rick White and Jason Richey.

 

 

 

 

 

Neither driver had a great reaction time but it was Richey out first.

 

 

 

White, back on M&H tires, was even by the 60' clocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White got to the stripe first with a 5.825 at 243.24. Richey never gave up with a game 5.978 at 248.75.

 

 

 

 

The second pair out was Brad Thompson and Shannon Stewart. Brad was a heavy favorite and had lane choice.

 

Playing catch up Stewart struck the tires before the 330' mark and watching Thompson truck away he clicked it and coasted to a 8.611 at 98.57.

Thompson legged it to the lights clocking a parts eating 5.742 at 257.21. Brad was running out of rounds to back up the ET record he got a leg on Friday.

Pair three featured Jack Harris and Mike McClennan and would be memorable to say the least. Note John Hashim checking the tire temperature.

McClennan's mount had a problem going into forward after the burnout and was guided back to the starting area.

From the hit you had the feeling this run was going to be special.

Two things to note here - the tires are showing no signs of chunking and Harris has the throttle closed before the finish line.

 

The scoreboard tells it all - by a ton the quickest pass in front engine top fuel history! Once it registered, the announcers, fans, racers and of course the crew went wild. Prior to this the quickest time ever was a 5.63 by Brad Thompson on an exhibition pass at the 2008 NHRA Winternationals. Harris' previous best was a 5.72 over two years ago. Obviously the 5.56 was the first leg of a new national record.

The final pair of the session would decide who would have the unenviable task of meeting Harris in the semis. Denver Schutz or Troy Green.

Green, normally a great leaver, got left on by the old vet Schutz.

 

Green was willing but the blower belt wasn't... it broke at the 900 foot mark leaving Big White dead in the water.

All Green could do was watch Schutz while he coasted through with a 5.954 at just 213.42. Greens numbers prior to the belt failure suggest he would have run a low 5.7 which would have made for a great drag race.

Schutz runs 5.77 and loses lane choice by two TENTHS to Harris. That's a real good new, bad news deal.

 

Top Fuel Eliminations - Semi Finals
5:19 p.m Saturday afternoon: After a 3 hour gap, the semis were finally ready to fire.

Part of the long delay between rounds was a pair of starting line clock malfunctions. Alan Miller and the Bowsers finally stabilized them enough to finish the event.

 

The first pair out had everybody on the property scrambling for a vantage point on the track. Jack Harris, who had turned the drag racing world on its head in round two would face a very tough customer in the form of Denver Schutz.

Schutz really did his job on the starting line cutting a 0.002 light. Harris, not even taking the chance of a red light gave up the tenth and began the chase.

 

 

 

 

 

Just passed the 60' clocks Big Red put its nose in front and never looked back.

 

 

 

Harris shut off at the 1100' mark.

 

Once again a picture is worth a thousand words. A 5.578 at 249.51 backs up Harris' earlier 5.568 for a new AAFD ET World Record. Jack jumped right over the 5.6s for back-to-back 5.5s - the most impressive performance in the history of the class - maybe the whole sport.

incrementals: 60ft (1.001), 330 ft (2.555), 660ft (3.735/210.47), 1,000ft (4.723).

 

 

With the entire track still buzzing over The Harris Show, the other semi pair heated their tires. Rick White paired with Brad Thompson who had lane choice. White back on the Hoosiers.

 

 

Thompson won the battle but lost the war with a huge "boom" in the lights. His 5.692 at 240.25 was his second best pass of the weekend but very costly. The crew would really have to thrash (with a lot of outside help) to make the call for the final. White gave it all he had with a losing 5.926 at 245.49.

Following the TF semis, 60's top fuel vet and leader of the nostalgia fuel movement in the 90s, Dan Horan made his first appearance of the weekend with his 1969 Don Long car (now VRA legal). Horan, not having run the car for about 9 years, spent about $10,000.00 just to make the car legal for the current rules just so he could run at the 50th March Meet.

Horan had spent the better part of the weekend helping son Dan campaign his Nitro Funny Car and now it was his turn to hit the track.

Horan's burnout went just fine - engine sounded good.

 

 

 

 

 

Dan Jr. gave his dad the sign to move into stage.

 

Brendan Murry brought him to the first light.

 

 

Horan puts the fuel system on the high side and things go directly south. Do not pass Go - do not collect $200. It went from a nice idle to a sound nobody had heard before.

 

 

 

Incredibly nobody shut him off....

 

 

 

In spite of belching flames and fuel under the tires Dan had come to far and spent too much not to make the hit.

 

The car blazed the tires and miraculously didn't bang the blower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He clicked it and coasted through - all the while remembering old times. Kudos to Dan for making the effort he did just to be part of a drag racing milestone.

 

 

In spite of the start of Daylight Savings Time, the sun had set by the time the two quickest cars in the world rolled out for what promised to be one hell of a drag race. Doing a lot of engine damage, Brad Thompson had clocked an excellent 5.692 at 240.25 in the semis but that was still over a tenth off of Harris' 5.57. Thompson and crew has a lot of repair work to do and almost didn't make the call for the last race of the weekend. However, no matter how good the Famoso track is during the day, when the sun goes down it has a habit of going away - in a hurry. Such was the case here.

As it should be, the two quickest and fastest drivers in NTF - Jack Harris and Brad Thompson meet for the final. Both knew they were going for the throat and had their cars loaded for bear. They also knew the history of racing under the lights at Bakersfield. So, the only question was - would the track hold their tune-ups.

This was a great drag race for about 40 feet' when Thompson started to lose traction.

Harris was still good when Brad had really boiled the tires. He tried to recover but no go.

 

Before half track Harris had traction problems of his own. Not knowing where Thompson was, Jack did a nice pedal job getting the car to the lights with a 6.064 at 239.36. Not pretty by any means but much better than Brad's 13.303 at 61.79.

The quote of the weekend had to come from Brad Thompson who said he came in singing "I Shot the Sheriff" and left singing, "I Fought the Law and the Law Won".

 

Harris had won his 3rd March Meet in 8 years (son Brett won last year).

 

 

Session One - Friday

Session Two - Saturday

Session Three - Saturday

Round One - Sunday

All the Winners plus Pits N' People

Funny & Other Race Cars

Media Day

 2008 March Meet Cacklefest