Day’s crew chief also was aware of this.

“That’s not a bad rate, seven tenths of a mile per hour for a grand. I’ll take it!” he said.

Pete Jensen, the crew chief for Wally Giavia, whose car consistently had been one of the quickest to half-track, was pleased with his run.

“I’m gonna let the weather and track come to me, and let’s see if we can make in run in the back half,” Jensen said.

The Van Gundy and Clark team, who missed the first session with a rear end problem, had that issue fixed then chased a couple of small gremlins and thrashed hard to make the second round call.

The sun had set behind the mountains as a modest yet enthusiastic crowd greeted the floppers making the turn for the second round.


The first out was Van Gundy in his refrigerator white Quarter Pounder Cuda. Van Gundy’s demeanor outside of the car is more of a loving, quiet, calm grandfather, rather than his fire breathing nitro Funny Car-driving alter ego. 

At the green, the white Cuda got up on the tire, had all the candles lit and had the high beams on, right down the center of the left lane. The scoreboard rang up a 6.02 - 236.46.

The next pair up was Overholser and Stanger. This was a strange one. At the green Overholser was out first, but only for about five feet as the yellow Trans Am came to an abrupt stop, almost sending Overholser’s head into the dash.

In the other lane, Stanger was driving his behind off trying to getting the car down the lane, stabbing and steering as the car crossed the finishing in a huge cloud of smoke.

There was no oil on the track from Stanger, and it was reported that Overholser had broken an input shaft.

Next, up it was Giavia and Godfrey. These two ran into difficulties as Godfrey was spinning and shaking and ended up near the center line, and Giavia would take the win light with a shut off 7.10-179.42

The final pair of the evening would pit the two quickest cars from the first round. As the cars were ordered to fire, the Pedaler started and Nance made a couple final adjustments and sent Day to do his burnout. However, in the other lane, strangeness was in full swing.

Garten’s car would start but for some reason would not idle, and as the crew worked frantically to get the car to stay running, it was to no avail, and Day was given a single.

But for some reason as Day pulled in to the beams, the light didn’t come down and when it did, Day had another great light, but the car spun and headed for the guardrail. Day wisely shut the car off and coasted through the lights.

Day was disappointed after getting back to the pits. 

“I don’t know what was going on up there; I let the clutch out, pulled the pump on and just sat there. I counted to 15 before the lights came down, which built a lot of clutch heat, and I knew then it wasn’t going to go anywhere, but overall we did learn something for Saturday Night Nitro, so that is good,” he said.

As for Garten, a piece of Teflon tape had somehow gotten into the barrel valve, blocked the opening on idle circuit and kept the car from running.

Therefore, the second round bonus would go to the Van Gundy and Clark team. In addition, it was a very popular win with both the fans and the other teams, as nearly all the teams came down and congratulated Van Gundy and Clark on their showing. “Prettiest run of the night” said one crew member.

Moreover, there was cloud cover on and off during the day, the moisture stayed away, and the fans got a good show.