2007 March Meet

Brett Harris - Like Father, Like Son, Wins March Meet
Murphy Runner-up - Still Looking for #5
Romanazzi Wins Funny Car

Bakersfield, CA - March 09-11, 2007: The 49th edition of the March Meet was, in a word, unfrigginbelieveable! That may not be a word per se, but any other superlative would be an understatement. As many of us knew they would, John and Blake Bowser - with a lot of help from their staff - put on a drag race for the ages. From the full pits on Thursday to the Winners Circle shots on Sunday this was an event blessed with Chamber of Commerce weather, an accommodating facility, incredible racing surface, friendly staff, full bore fans and upbeat attitudes throughout.

The 2007 March Meet was a grand slam home run by anybody's standards. The 35,000+ fans that packed the facility over the three-day event were treated to over 500 race cars, a packed manufactures midway, a wide variety of cacklecars, a swap meet, show cars, rat rods and many of the sports greatest stars. By Sunday everyone was already making their reservations for the 2008 event - the 50th Anniversary of the March Meet. One can only imagine what a blast that will be!

Now, done in installments, here is the first Top Fuel qualifying session from Friday. Returning to 3 qualifying sessions (2006 races only had 2) took a lot of pressure off the teams to hit one out of the box on Friday so most used the first session to get a baseline tune-up for the weekend.

All sessions and elimination rounds will go up as done.

Photos by: Bob Brown, Jason Ellis, Dan Kaplan, Steve Justice, Warren Merriman, Steven Bunker, Tim Hanaseth, John Ewald and Don Ewald

Brett Harris swept the stout Top Fuel field making him the other half of the first father and son combo to win the March Meet in its 49 year history. Dad Jack has won Top Fuel at this event twice. Harris ran a weekend best 5.865 at 257.65 to beat an up-in-smoke Jim Murphy in the final.

Top Fuel Qualifying - Session One
Under sunny skies and ideal track conditions the first session of Top Fuel qualifying went off at 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon.

The first pair to test the water was Ron Maroney in Steve Barcak's unique Pontiac powered fueler from Arizona and Mark Malde in the unmistakable and ever improving Birky Bunch car.

Maroney lost fire at the end of his burnout leaving Malde to single.

Malde launched hard in the yellow car and looked like he'd cut a number.

The engine started to eat pistons before the 1000' mark and Malde clicked it to a 6.230 at 199.46.

Pair two featured Bill Dunlap in Mike Fuller's car and Rick White in the AutoPower Neal & White entry from San Diego.

Side by side at the hit, but White pulled away at every mark. Dunlap was off the pedal before 1000 ft.

White clocked a good baseline 6.015 at 233.70 while Dunlap settled for an early click 6.662 at 158.25.

Pair three pitted Pete "Fritz" Kaiser in John Eirich's "Ground Zero" and Denver Schutz in the "Raisin Express" car of Jim Cullen.

Both cars left hard with Kaiser using up a lot of clutch to card a respectable 6.045 at 237.90.

Schutz on the other hand ripped off a pace setting 5.897 at 249.16.

Out next was Rick Rogers in the newly painted (very slick) Full Throttle News car and the still unpainted ride of John Shoemaker.

Neither of these were pretty from the hit. Shoemaker got away but his 1.195 60 foot time doomed any decent number on the other end. Rogers blew the tires when the injectors opened.

Rick's 14.974 at 57.78 surely would not hold and neither would John's 6.283 at 207.80.

Pair five was Shannon Stewart in Bob Richardson's newly updated "Circuit Breaker" (great paint job) and Howard Haight in Butch Blair's "Fugowie".

From the hit Stewart had the better car.

By the tree Haight was in trouble with spinning tires. With two sessions left he just clicked it and coasted to a 12.000 at 74.38.

Stewart had no problems whatsoever and got everybody's attention going low with a career best 5.843 at just 220.85. The 5.84 would hold for low ET of the session leaving Stewart on the poll for a day.

As the photos show, he was off the throttle and pulling the chutes BEFORE the first light.

The chutes were fully blossomed by the ET/Speed light. This run would have been huge had he legged it through.

Next out was Big Red the Kaysville, Utah based Nitro Thunder car driven by Brett Harris.

In the left lane was Rick McGee in the Tedford & McGee "Overtime Special".

Both cars were soft on the bottom but picked it up down track.

In the lights it was Harris with a 5.943 at 245.63 and McGee right there with a 5.992 at 250.00 which would stand for top speed of the first session.

The seventh pair pitted Adam Sorokin in the RB Entertainment - Champion Speed Shop car and Jack "The Sheriff" Harris in the Rodeck & Harris entry.

Sorokin left very hard but encountered tire slippage down track.

As with most of the cars in this first session Harris went out with a somewhat conservative tune up. They didn't want to overpower the track, but they also didn't want to be too far off. In hindsight their call was pretty close, but the track had more teeth than they thought it would.

Jack encountered some tire shake from 20' to 80' and right after that he noticed that his foot was not fully depressed on the throttle, so he corrected it, but then after careful consideration (which probably took all of a millisecond), he stepped off of the throttle early (1,035' @ 5.32 seconds) and ended up running 6.111 at 213.32.

Jack later explained the early shut off as a 'senior moment'. No one on the Rodeck crew had a problem with that as they all needed to see the car go to the other end without basting Jack with BBQ sauce, which was something they had done at the last couple of races of 2006. It appeared they had found the cause for that over the winter and cured it.

Sorokin got a little out of the groove and also clicked it early to a 6.013 at 225.79.

Next out was Brendan Murry in his "Running Wild Racing" Chevy car and local hitter Brad Thompson in the LG Bless digger.

As one can see, Thompson put the car on a diet over the winter which included losing the full body.

Murry left as good as we've seen in a while and Thompson left even harder and pulled away from Murry at every mark.

On the other end Murry was still trying for a number when Thompson got too close to the center line and called it quits to a 6.078 at just 205.47. Murry netted a 6.136 at 239.55.

The last pair out was Jason Richey in Dave Smith's "Nitro Fever" and Troy Green in the High Speed Motorsports/Players Network fueler. These two would would end up meeting again for the first round of eliminations on Sunday.

Both cars were a little soft on the hit but looked good.

Then before half track the car inexplicably nosed over and Green wisely shut it off coasting to a 9.204 at 98.41.

Richey ran it to the 1100' mark and carded a 5.964 at 228.25.

The last car to take a shot in session one was Jim Murphy, who was after his 5th and record March Meet win, in his WW2 Racing entry. He had the track all to himself.

At the hit the green car sounded great.

Before the first light Jim felt something amiss and shut it off and still ran a stellar 5.869 at just 229.70. In spite of the engine damage the time established a very encouraging baseline for a weekend tune-up.

Sitting at the top of the Funny Car ladder after the first session was Ron Capps with a 5.987 at 236.09 (this would be the lone 5 second FC run of the entire meet).

# 2 was eventual winner, Stephen Romanazzi 6.086 at 233.58.

Pits N' People Page Coming Soon

All Winners

Session Two & Three - Saturday

Eliminations - Round One Sunday

Eliminations Rounds Two, Three & Finals