If Hale was having the lows of the weekend, 2011 NHRA Heritage Series Funny Car Champ Jason Rupert was riding high with his continued mastery of the Famoso quarter mile, running a near-perfect 5.668 ET at 262.03 mph for the number one spot atop a great list of entrants. Unfortunately, on that pass as Rupert stepped off the throttle an errant rod escaped the confines of the BAE billet engine block and the car never ran up to expectations for the rest of the race.

One qualifying long-shot for the event was newcomer Donny Watkins and his black ’78 Plymouth Arrow-bodied funny car. A last minute decision to enter the event meant he and his team were down at Chuck Worsham’s SoCal shop installing the NHRA-mandated carbon fiber front brakes only days before the March Meet. With a few extra parts and tuner “Big Ray” Gandy, Watkins was able to qualify into the elite field with a career-best 5.852 ET at 242.32 mph, landing in fourteenth. That was the good news; the bad new was that effort got him a first round matchup against last year’s March Meet winner, Kris Krabill, in the first round.

Rookie Ryan Davenport didn’t make the field. (Donna Bistran photo)

Another funny car team just missing the bump spot and kept out of eliminations with a 5.947 ET was the O’Brien & Austin “Northwest Hitter” ’79 Plymouth Arrow driven by Canadian newcomer Ryan Davenport. Co-owner Mike O’Brien was philosophical about their weekend, saying, “Sure we are disappointed. We made some bad decisions, had some fuel pump issues, but we got behind the 8-ball and couldn’t catch up. Ryan is so communicative and so good, I know we’ll be back in it at the next event!”

One thing for sure, the nitro funny car contingent was taking the March Meet seriously as on Friday night, with one more Saturday qualifying session to go, there were nine engine changes going on late into the night in the dark Famoso pits.