It was Super!
Pit Notes from the IHBA Lucas Oil Drag Boat Super Nationals at Chowchilla, CA.
Three-time IHBA Lucas Oil Top Fuel Hydro Champion Greg Tedesco (above) had not made a full pass on the liquid quarter mile in over three years, Tedesco has spent countless amounts of money, had three different hull designs and sacrificed many pieces of custom parts to the aluminum gods without much success, but all of the effort paid off during the third stop on the IHBA Lucas Oil drag boat series as Tedesco unloaded a stellar 4.79/ 240-mph lap during Friday testing. In Saturday’s first qualifying session Tedesco recorded another 4.79 to put the Blo Me Gear Loose Cannon in the first qualifying spot. In view of what they had been through the past three years, the team opted to skip round two and save their parts for Sunday's eliminations.
St. Louis-based John Haas, driving owner Lou Osman's new Top Fuel Hydro tuned by "Famous" Amos Satterlee, is the series points leader after winning the last two series events. The once dominating TFH team has not yet made it to the finish line this year under full power, but the still leads the points -- and remember, there are no style points in drag racing!
Walt Ott and his Performance Plus Machine Rock Star Energy TFH had big trouble on its only qualifying attempt as the W drive in the boat broke, causing the engine RPM to go to the max. The result was this serious-looking fire at just 330 feet off the line. Since Walt builds his own W drive, the team had no spare and was done for the weekend.