Qualifying

With fourteen cars on the property, qualifying geared more towards starting positions.  

Bartone continued to dominate as in Q1 he ran a very stout 5.57 at 241.32 mph to take the pole.

The surprise at number two was the very spry Bill Dunlap at the wheel of the High Speed Motorsports car with a very solid 5.71/232.11.

Number three on the hit parade was Fresno based raisin farmer, Denver Schutz, with a nice 5.76/224.62.

Batting clean-up on the field was Stockton, California’s Rick Williamson in the Team Craig machine with a 5.82/244.25-mph charge.

Rounding out the top five was Dusty Green in the “Nitro Hemi” at 5.92-244.29. On the bump was Dan Horan Sr., in his Big Bear-based machine.

One notable in qualifying was Jim Murphy who was in the number-nine position; Murphy was looking to secure his fifth March Meet Top Fuel title which would tie him with some guy from Florida named Garlits or something like that.  (Paul Schmitz photo)

Round one

Round one always happens on Saturday evening and as the sun started to go down and the shadows started to grow the fuelers started to populate the staging lane in preparation for battle.

The results of the first five pairing were routine as the quicker qualified cars moved on to round two. But…

The sixth pair featured Murphy and old friend and rival Rick McGee. At the green it was Murphy moving first and then stretching out his lead to take the victory over the quicker qualified McGee, 5.97 at 257.97 to cover the Exeter, California, driver’s slowing 6.04/213.67.

The final pair of round one was to feature number-seven qualifier Rick White from San Diego, and the number-eight qualifier, Adam Sorokin in the red hard top Champion Speed Shops car. As luck would have it White and partner Chuck Neal were unable to make the call for round one, and on the single, Sorokin was able to dodge a bullet when a clutch issue, according to Sorokin, caused “the clutch to weld itself together and the car smoked the tires.”