TOP GUN RACING

The Firebird Halloween Classic has distinctive races every day, and then two special event races. The first is Top Gun, which was actually one of the precursors to today’s top sportsman and top dragster classes that run the divisional and some selected national events. The unique thing about how this is run is that the two classes are broken up into full bodied cars and dragsters, but to win the whole thing the two winners in dragster and full body run off for the overall win.

This year both classes had full fields of sixteen cars, despite many people heading to Las Vegas for the Jeg’s Pacific SPORTSnationals.

Dave Poulsen

Dan Lafferty’s Vette has not seen the light of day in nearly six years.

After qualifying was done the low qualifier in Top Gun Open Wheel was Utah’s Dave Poulsen in his big-inch nitrous-assisted dragster with an elapsed time of 6.74 at 197 miles per hour. Second was Steve Cook in his blown alcohol dragster, 6.90 at 194 mph, third was Mark Tarabochia in his BB funny car with a 7.00 at 200.62, and fourth just missing the sixes was Eric Nyberg in Jim Whiteley’s YNot Altered at 7.01 seconds at 191 mph. Unfortunately, Tarabochia killed a motor and was unable to continue so Steve Schoenfeld was slotted into his spot.

In the full bodied class, Justin Linares had the field covered after qualifying, running a 6.93 at 200 mph. Nearly three-tenths back was Dan Lafferty in his beautiful black ‘63 split window Corvette at 7.20 seconds. Third was Billings, Montana’s Brian Stief driving the Neibauer family’s yellow ‘63 split window at 7.24 seconds, and in fourth was son Jake Neibauer at 7.38 in the family’s red ‘63 split window. On the bump was Judy Radford in her Dodge Dakota Pro Stock truck at 8.32 seconds.

A brief rain shower on Saturday morning delayed the start of racing for some time, but once the weather cleared and the track was ready, some great racing took place with upsets coming as neither of the low qualifiers made it to the semifinals.