Tim Boychuk (Tim Marshall photo)

In round two, Boychuk got past Jason Rupert, who’d qualified #1 with a 5.694 and Top Speed of 255.68, and in the semi’s defeated Chad Head, who fouled out because of a broken clutch pedal.

In the final round, both cars took off side by side, but the “Mr. Explosive” car succumbed to driveline failure and the race was over for Sanders. Boychuk ran another 5.814 ET at 249.21 mph while Sanders limped through the lights at 15.39.

It was vindication for Boychuk with this year’s March Meet victory.
“We proved we could do this,” Boychuk said. “Our guys worked so hard, just like we did last year.”

Sanders said of his return after a terrible crash at the 2012 March Meet when his Nova funny car smacked the guard wall hard during qualifying, “We are on Cloud 8 -- Cloud 9 if we’d won -- but it took a year for me to come back, and six months for my kid Jake to build this car and body. We are back and this is a great way to start it off!”

Wayne Mellinger blew an engine on Thursday and then hit the wall to cap off the weekend. (Paul Schmitz photos)ww