This left the Championship to be decided between two drivers, former T/F Champ Jim Murphy and Jim Young. Murphy needed to win first round to clinch the championship, and he did by defeating Ron August Jr. in Mike Fuller’s “Forever Young” fueler. This one was closer than Murphy would have liked as August was out on him by 43-thousandths of a second, which forced Murphy to drive around him and take the strip by 93-thousandths of a second, 5.805 to 5.941.

Brett Harris  (Mike Basso photo)

Murphy’s weekend ended in the second round against Brett Harris when the “Nitro Hemi” driver from Kaysville, Utah, took the win in a pedal fest 6.018 to 6.265.

This put the favorite to win the race status back on low qualifier Denver Schutz who promptly took out Harris in the semifinal round. He had started his weekend with a bye in the first round and a win over Bill Dunlap in the “High Speed” top fueler.

Schutz was the favorite, but had to face off with the former World Champion, Adam Sorokin in the “Champion Speed Shop” car. 

Sorokin with a small-block Chevy between the rails qualified in the middle of the pack with a conservative 5.86-second run. In the first round Sorokin was scheduled to face off against the other mouse motor-powered dragster in the class, Jimmy Young.

Young was running a lot of one-off parts in the Chevy and, while early testing was showing promise, qualifying took its toll on those unique parts and Young decided to cut his losses and not make the call for first round. This allowed Sorokin to single for the round win and the Top Fuel title to go to Murphy.