Krabill, Bowen dominate DRO/Lucas Cordova race

Words by Jeff Burk - Photos by Don Eckert and Jeff Burk

The first race of the DragRacingOnline.com AA/FC Challenge presented by Lucas Oil was dominated by Midwest hitter Paul Romine but the second race saw the West Coast’s hitter show up and dominate that event.

West Coast hitter Kris Krabill, wheeling Gary Turner’s “Pedaler” Plymouth Arrow AA/FC that is tuned by part-time “big show” driver Cory Lee, joined the DRO AA/FC Challenge presented by Lucas Oil in the second race of the season held at historic Cordova (Ill.) Dragway Park near the Quad Cities of Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, and Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa.

There had been some speculation on the Internet chat rooms that the California car wouldn’t be as quick or fast on Midwest tracks as it was out west. The Gary Turner team quickly dispelled that theory by qualifying in the number one slot, re-setting both ends of the AA/FC track record to 5.928/242.28, and winning the race besting Minnesota’s Shawn Bowen in the finals with a
5.994/237.01 to a 6.023/238.38 barnburner of a final round.

There were just seven cars for an eight-car field despite Cordova
Dragway Park owner Scott Gardner upping the total purse,
including increasing first round loser money to $2,000.

There were a lot of racers making their 2010 DRO/Lucas Oil
AA/FC Challenge debut at the Cordova event. New faces
included California racers Kris Krabill and Brad Faria,
and Bruce Oja from Minnesota. The new racers had
mixed results. Krabill won the race. Faria in his
Mopar wedge-powered Corvette struggled
but got down the track. Bruce Oja driving in
his first race drove the Ted Guth-tuned
“White Trash” to a personal best
6.252/219.97 and his first round
win ever.

The AA/FC racers were all faced
with possibly making four laps on
Saturday (one qualifying and three
elimination laps) but despite that
four cars came out for the Saturday
qualifying including Shawn Bowen,
Paul Romine, Mark Worden, and Randy Baker. Worden had to make the pass because he had crossed the centerline on his first lap and had to make another to qualify.

Most of the teams have all-volunteer crews yet they were able to turn the cars around in less than two hours all race day. Between the first round of Eliminations that went off exactly at 6 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m. Gary Turner’s crew replaced a damaged rod and piston, Romine’s crew changed out a rack of pistons and then during the warm up the blower inhaled a bolt and they replaced the blower and took the heads of before the second round. After the semifinals, which ended at approximately 7:40, the crews of bothe the “Violator” and the “Pedaler” had issues with their motors but repaired their engines, serviced the cars and were back in the lanes before 10 p.m.

One thing that is really apparent from the first two DRO AA/FC Challenge races this season is that the racers are there to race and willing to do whatever is necessary to get down the track.

Kris Krabill in the “Pedaler.” (Don Eckert photo)