Rocky Mountain Raceways’ Summer Send Off

Words and photos by Brian Losness

Rocky Mountain Raceways’ General Manager Mike Eames might have been thinking on Friday afternoon “Oh no not again!” 

For the second time this year, Eames had booked in nostalgia Funny Cars and Mother Nature had responded with rain — lots of rain. Moreover, the weather forecast was not very promising.

Rocky Mountain Raceways was kicking off its annual Summer Send Off event, combining a book-in nostalgia Funny Car show and a big dollar bracket race featuring classes for both electronics and no electronics cars.

Friday was supposed to be the kickoff of the bracket racing program for the weekend. The weather had other ideas, so the management decided after it was determined that weather would prevent any racing, that the scheduled purse from Friday night would then be rolled over into the Saturday night races.

Speaking of Saturday night that was the big night of the event, the big money bracket race, and the piece de resistance was nostalgia nitro Funny Cars. The sun rose on Saturday morning and the forecasted rain never materialized, so it was going to be a good day.

Eight cars were scheduled to show up in West Valley, including March Meet winner James Day in Gary Turner’s Pedaler ride, Don Nelson’s California Hustler and local hero Scott Stanger in his beautiful Bad Manners Cuda.

However, only seven cars were able to make the trip to the Young Kia Strip.

The format for the floppers would be simple and effective. Everybody runs, and the quickest runs and fastest runs of each session would get the win and a bonus regardless of whether that particular driver took the win light in his or her contest.

For the first session only six cars were able to make the call. The team of Van Gundy and Clark were having issues with the race car.

“We learned long ago that if there is something not right, we will not run the car,” driver Dale Van Gundy said.

Van Gundy found an anomaly with the rear end, so they changed out the center section, but did not have enough time to make the first round call.

As the sun was starting to set behind the starting line, the first session of Funny Cars were pulled into the staging lanes.