Another Rick is fourth in Rick McGee at 5.73 and 240.

The trifecta of Ricks makes up the fifth spot - Rick Williamson in the Team Craig fueler with a 5.78-second run.

Jim Boyd closed out the field at 15.03.

Round One

The first round of Top Fuel was interesting to say the least. It started off in routine fashion as the higher qualified cars of Rick White, Rick McGee and Rick Williamson all won their matchups.

The fourth pair had The RE3 Express of Denver Schutz and Jim Young matching up. Young was way out in front of Schutz at the start by six hundredths of a second. But as the cars got to a thousand feet, the small block of Young’s “Crop Duster” met its demise in violent fashion with a huge boom and a flash of fire. This allowed Schutz just to get around Young in the lights.

Owner and crew chief Frank Ousley in the “Crop Duster” Top Fuel pits.
(James Drew photo)

Then Tony Bartone took a single in his match up, as Jim Boyd did not make the call. Bartone ran the car to just past halftrack and shut it off still recording a 6.33/162.20 mph lap.

The full moon struck again as Dusty Green and Dave Hirata match up. Both cars fired for the burnout and for some unexplained reason the “Orange Crate” shut off. Come to find out that the linkage fell of the clutch pedal and Hirata wisely clicked the car off, giving Green an uncontested single. But the strangeness didn’t stop there at the green the “Circuit Breaker” blew a breaker and it too shut off just after Green stepped down on the throttle.

More fun ensued as number-eight qualifier Ron August and number-nine Terry Cox met up. At the green August put seven and a half hundredths on Cox, who went on to make a stellar 5.81-second run, but it wasn’t enough to catch August’s 5.87. MOV: .014 of a second.

Jim Murphy (Tim Marshall photo)

The final pair put Adam Sorokin and Jim Murphy. Murphy who was plagued with more problems than the United Nations, literally changed motors twice in the pits between Friday night and first round on Saturday, having never seen the race track.

As the cars started to stage Sorokin turned on the bottom bulb and Murphy, who was still pre-staged, stabbed the throttle and took off. It startled Sorokin, but he kept his wits and made a predetermined 1,000-foot blast.

“We thought Jim might not make the call so if that was the case we were planning to go to a 1,000 foot,” Sorokin said, “and when I saw him go before the tree I was like what the heck, well I guess I get a single and do the plan.”

Murphy was philosophical about the whole deal. “That is only my second red light in over 40 years. I was so messed up on the starting line, we had so many problems between Friday night and Saturday afternoon, I almost threw the towel in a couple of times.”