Nightfire Nationals at Boise, Idaho

A few bumps in the road

Words by Brian Losness
Photos by Brian Losness and Amanda Losness

As I look back at the latest addition of the Pepsi Nightfire Nationals held at Boise’s Firebird Raceway, I am reminded of something my late father used to say; “Sport, if there were not bumps in the road, life’s path would be boring, very boring.”

That is what could be said about this year’s Nightfires held Aug. 8-10, especially in the professional classes.

In Friday’s first professional qualifying session, in the second pair of Pro Mods, Chris Storlie from Oregon City, Ore., running in the left lane got out past the transition and this appeared to upset the car. The car pitched the back end out sending Storlie into the left guard wall with heavy impact then shooting the car back across the racetrack. The car made impact again with the right retaining wall and it the erupted into flames.

The car came to a stop and the Firebird Safety Team was right on top of him, and Storlie got out of the car under his own power. Storlie was checked out and went back to his trailer to figure out how to fix his mortally wounded racecar.

“I’m fine, I got bumped around and my leg is sore,” Storlie explained. “I have never gotten out of the car with the HANS device on, and this time I figured I didn’t have time to take it off and it hung up a little bit when I tried to get out and that’s why it took a second.”

This was the precursor to how things would go in the left lane on Friday night as several professional cars either had difficulties or crossed the center line in the left lane.

Another interesting point was that arguably the two most powerful nostalgia nitro cars on the planet had issues with the right lane as Tony Bartone and Dan Horan both crossed the center line in the right lane.

Crew chiefs were perplexed to say the least.

The New Crew recognized this and their team went to work after the session and started to work on the lanes to make positive adjustments. This work needed to be done after a 15-hour day of racing. Firebird has a very dedicated staff.