2007 March Meet - Eliminations 1

Sunday - Eliminations - Rounds Two, Three & Finals

Top Fuel Eliminations - Round Two
10:59 a.m. Weather conditions: air temperature 67 degrees, relative humidity 38 percent, barometer 30.18 inches, track temperature 78 degrees. It's time to race.

With the field down to eight big dogs the first pair for round two was Brett Harris and Rick White.

Harris got a .030 advantage on the light and made White play catchup for 1320 feet.

Try as he did, White never caught Harris in a good drag race. Brett moved to the semis with a 5.919 at 258.99 over Rick's game 5.982 at 240.64.

With three runs in the 5 70's Brad Thompon was looking unbeatable but Jason Richey sure gave it a shot.

Thompson got a slight lead at the start and Richey gave chase.

Thompson never saw Richey and cared yet another huge number.

Richey's time would win a lot of races (5.858 at 253.37) but not when the guy in the other lane runs 5.748 at 259.81. The orange machine looked awesome.

After repairing his brake handle, Jim Murphy was paired with Adam Sorokin.

Sorokin had .060 in the bank at the hit.

By the 330' mark both cars were dead even.

At half track Sorokin started drifting toward the wall an had to pedal and that was all she wrote. Murphy clocked the the third quickest time of his career 5.807 at 250.20. Sorokin's 6.274 at 221.78 wasn't even close.

The final pair of round two was Shannon Stewart and Denver Schutz. Stewart had been the quicker car all weekend.

Looking for an advantage, Schutz pulled a couple of staging tricks out of his hat and they worked. The vet rattled the rookie and Stewart left before the tree was even activated.

Steward clicked it immediately.

Schutz staged then ran it out to half track and clicked it to a 7.117 at 162.39 leaving Stewart to ponder Staging Games 101.

Funny Car Eliminations - Round One
Eight car show so first round was run after second round of Top Fuel.

Jeff Utterback was due to face Ron Capps in round 1 but the Pisano crew found cracks in their JP1 block and couldn't make the call. Steve Nichols got in as the first alternate. Nichols put a holeshot on the pro but Capps motored by at the 300 foot mark. Capps (left lane) took the win over with an engine wounding 6.274 at 213.62 to a worse engine wounding 8.662 at 96.62. Clean up on both lanes.

The second pair featured Mike Savage in the Speed Sport Barracuda and Dennis La Charite. LaCharite left first by a bunch and lead at every marker to a nice 6.068 at 242.98 (top FC speed of the meet) to an "I give up" 6.637 at 176.26 for Savage.

Pair three of the 8 car show pitted Jim "Centerline" Holtz and the Donnie Couch tuned Vega of Steve Romanazzi. This was ugly... Romo had a horrible reaction time and trouble early on - he was a sitting duck. However, he got lucky when Holtz took his second trip over the centerline of the weekend taking out the 660' block in the process. Romanazzi moved to round two with a 10.204 88.02.

The last pair matched up Lee Paul Jennings (in on the brake rule for Nate Bugg) in the "Code Red" Challenger and Chris Krabill in "The Pedaler". Krabill left first but Jennings soon drove by for a 6.146 at 221.07 to 6.212 at 236.40 win.

Top Fuel Eliminations - Semi Finals
4:17 p.m. Weather conditions: air temperature 76 degrees, relative humidity 31 percent, barometer 30.14 inches, track temperature 91 degrees.

The first pair to do battle in the semis was Brett Harris and Denver Schutz.

Schutz couldn't rattle Harris and Big Red had a .022 lead at the green.

What a drag race... one of the best of the weekend. Harris with the holeshot ran a 5.896 at 257.51 to hold off Schutz's quicker ET (5.876 at 251.88) for the narrowest of wins. Harris' MOV: 0.0068 seconds (approximately 3 feet) and it earned him a trip to the Final.

Bookending the semis was the two baddest hot rods on the property... Jim Murphy and Brad Thompson (lane choice).

Murphy was on his game and strapped a huge holeshot on Thompson (0.062 to a 0.109) and would need every bit of it.

Thomson was slowly reeling Murphy in but ran out of real estate. Murphy got the win in the closest Top Fuel race of the weekend with a 5.869 at 253.95 to Brad's 5.828 at 258.54. Murphy's margin of victory was 0.0062 seconds (approximately 2 feet). This was a great drag race!

Murphy was one round win away from history - his fifth March Meet win.

Funny Car Eliminations - Round Two

The first pair of FC second stanza was Stephen Romanazzi who advanced when Holtz crossed the center line and Dennis La Charite who ran a nice 6.06 in round one and obviously had lane choice here. At the flick of the switch Romanazzi strapped a huge holeshot on La Charite and never looked back. His 6.039 at 231.95 was more than enough to hold off Dennis' game 6.073 at 239.61.

The second pair matched Lee Jennings Jr. who was back in on the break rule when Capps couldn't make the call and Chris Krabill who had flat out beat Jennings in round. This time the means were different but the result the same when Krabill put .060 in the bank at the hit and held on for the holeshot win with a 6.203 at 234.68 to Jennins' quicker 6.171 at 227.38.

Funny Car Eliminations - Final

The funny car final had its share of drama in the fact that in 2006 Donnie Couch tuned Chris Krabill and Gary Turner's "Pedaler" to the championship. This year Couch is tuning for Stephen Romanazzi and now the two meet in the first final of the year. However the drama was over early when Krabill couldn't wait and went red wasting a 6.212 at. 236.59 and handing Romanazzi his first win.

Romanazzi climbed out his roof hatch and had a one man celebration until Donny Couch and the rest of his crew got to the top end. My guess is this won't be his last trip to the winners circle.

Top Fuel Eliminations - Final
6:21 PM and the sun was all but set and the track cooled considerably but still very tight.

Brett Harris and Jim Murphy roll out to do battle. The slowest run among both car since the last session of qualifying was a 5.96 and the quickest, Murphy's 5.80 in round two. Talk about a coin toss!

Both cars made strong burnouts and were running on all eight.

Harris got his 4 straight holeshot but this time he didn't need it. This race was over in a heart beat when Murphy inexplicably blazed the tires at the hit.

Denied his fifth and record setting 5th March Meet win all Jim Murphy could do was sit and watch Harris clock a sterling 5.865 at 257.65 (his best run of the weekend) for his 1st March classic victory.

Coasting to the end Murphy was left to ponder what went wrong and lament a bitter loss when they were so close to the goal. Then it clicked, it was simple... what had been going on was they have had a fuel system problem for the past two seasons that was leaning the engine out. Over the winter, they had set the engine up to be much richer. After running well on Friday and Saturday but still hurting the motor, Jim and Tim finally realized what the problem was and fixed it Sunday morning.

They fixed the problem that had been doing the damage to the engine for the last two years but for the first three rounds on Sunday the engine was running on seven cylinders for the first four tenths of a seconds (terrible sixty foot times) and then it would pick up and run. They were able to correct that for the final but just had a bit to much clutch for eight cylinders. Despite the dropped cylinders they did run their third quickest time ever (5.80 flat in round two) and the two runs that were better were accomplished three years ago when they set the record that still stands today.

One more thing is after they discovered their problem they did not burn up anything on Sunday ( a new trend). A few pinched rings all day and they will get that taken care of with a few more runs. A silver cloud for sure.

You can bet they will be back here in March of 2008 to try again.

Meanwhile Brett climbs out one happy camper.

Following the Top Fuel final Jack Harris made a tire test run in John Rodeck's car and although it was not successful he did get a quick trip to the other end to congratulate Brett.

A tired but thrilled Nitro Thunder team.

Final Eliminations - Other Classes

The A-Fuel final paired up a vet, Kin Bates and a rookie, Gary Eickmann. Bates, sporting a new full body, was in total control of this deal. He left first and carded a 6.326 at 226.07 to cover Eickmann's 6.583 at 213.87. It should be noted that Eickmann is still sorting out his new car and will be a player for some time to come.

The popular AA/Gas class final pitted Chris Abbey's Vette and Dale Boomgaarden in the Malocotte Bros. Barracuda. Both cars left together but it was Abbey with the horsepower to nail down a close win with a 6.731 at 207.85 to a 6.751 at 207.75.

For whatever reasons Jr. Fuel A only had three cars in contention. The final featured Wayne Ramay and J.D. Zink. Ramay left first but had problems down track as Zink carded a nice 6.923 at 190.27 to take home the money.

For the last two seasons the Jr Fuel 'B' class has been nearly dominated by John Rasmussen and in the semi finals he ran the classes quickest run ever (7.11) so he was logically favored here. Nobody told that to Bub Hammer who, by being consistent, earned his spot in the final. Bud left first by a bunch and Rasmussen slowed with an end result of Hammer winning with a 7.197 at 185.03 over a 7.211 at 186.76 for John. It's been said before, drag races are not run on paper.

Five rounds of Nostalgia Eliminator boiled down to Mike Smith in his blown dragster and Dave Ward in his alterd. After an even leave it was Ward all the way with a 7.629 at 164.50.

NE2 came down to first time finalist Skip Spence and vet Dan See (no photo). Spence took a shot at the tree and lost giving another title to See.

In A/Gas it was Brad Chafee in his red Nova over Dave Matson (0.071) 7.635 0.035 to (0.103) 7.629 0.029.

The 16 car B/Gas field went to Leonard Perry in "The Patriot" with a 0.015 8.617 155.70 over Eric Bush's losing 0.031 8.664 159.23.

Red McGuiness (left lane) survive a huge filed to win the C/Gas show over Pat Walker (0.034) 9.614 0.014 to (0.046) 9.602 0.002.

Pits N' People Page Coming Soon

Session One - Friday

Session Two & Three - Saturday

Eliminations - Round One Sunday

All Winners