WFA at Barona, Calif.

Holeman takes

Words by Hal Sanguinetti
Photos by Pete Liebig Photography

Sunny skies and enthusiastic fans greeted the Western Fuel Altereds group at Barona Dragway’s 10th Anniversary Party on July 13. Running their usual Chicago-style format where every car run two rounds and the two quickest cars meet in the finale, the favorites quickly established their positions.

First round action saw 2011/12 WFA Champion Dean Oberg set the standard with a 4.502/157.37 (top speed of the meet) on Barona’s eighth-mile surface, an outstanding run on the daytime-tricky (for hot cars) surface. Second was Barona’s own former CIFCA champ Eric Gates, almost a tenth behind with a 4.591. Both drivers were running funny car bodies for this ‘open’ event, as was Gardnerville, Utah’s Hal Rishton, who encountered some issues with the combination this weekend. Third the first round was a new racer with WFA from Kingman, AZ.

Greg Holeman brought his very bright yellow ‘23 T-bucket an ran a nice 4.653/173.34, only to have problems at the big end with late parachutes. At Barona, getting the laundry out promptly is of great importance to say the least. Fortunately, Greg had 4-wheel brakes and slowed the car down quickly in a huge cloud of tire smoke - a very heads-up driving job! It remained the ‘buzz talk’ for everyone the rest of the evening.

This event saw the return of the ‘Rust Bucket’ Bantam roadster driven by Mitch Bowen from Flagstaff, AZ. Mitch had taken the 2012 season off but came right back hard with a 4.762/138.93.

Some of the other WFA hitters had rough weekends: Sheldon Lofgreen and his AZ Thunder/AZ Blow Dryer twin-turbocharged machine launched well each run (the two best 60-foot times of the event!) but literally blew the tires off at about the 330-foot mark each pass.

When they get this beast figured out, it is going to be an animal - tons of power, very low maintenance and really fun to watch!