Sunday Eliminations

Although there were 10 teams pre-entered there were only seven present when the first round of qualifying went off at 1 p.m. Saturday. There were six nostalgia nitro funny cars and Jimmy Young driving the lone nitro burning Chevy-powered Top Fueler.
Young grenaded his motor on his last qualifying pass when a new connecting rod broke, killing the engine block, crank, and possibly a head, which reduced the field to six cars on Sunday. The track management insisted on using a traditional eight-car NHRA ladder on raceday, so there were two bye runs. As number-one qualifier, Romine got a bye and when Young was unable to fix his Chevy-powered Top Fueler his opponent, Mike Lewis, also had a competition bye!

Instead of running the two cars on singles they ran as a pair in the first round with both drivers advancing to the semifinals. In other first round match-ups Steve Nichols in his carbon fiber '70½ Camaro got the win over Troy Ray's old school "Wildchild" Challenger. Ray, who built and races an exact copy of a sixties era Logghe Funny car chassis, ran an astounding (for that car) 6.874/206.32.

In the other match-up Bowen raced Bodie Smith in the Jungle Jim "blue" Vega. Smith won the last DRO race at Maple Grove in 2013 in the same car, but this year he was clobbered by Bowen, who ran a stellar 5.799/247.11 to Smith's game 6.005/223.38.

The semifinals found Bowen and Nichols facing off with Bowen overcoming a massive holeshot to beat Nichols. Nichols was ahead at the 330-foot clocks but was behind by .001 to Bowen at half-track and never caught up. In the last pairing of the semifinals Romine raced Mike Lewis (VP at Don Schumacher Racing) in the red "Jungle" car. Lewis was right with Romine when he started spinning the tires at the 330 mark and then watched Romine motor away for the win.

That set up the final round that would be a match-up between drivers with four DRO national Funny Car championships between them.

Pit Notes from Maple Grove

Jimmy Young and car owner Stephan McCain, like many budget racers, don't carry a lot of spare parts. So when a brand new rod snapped in half and broke the block, cylinder head and camshaft they were done with racing. Young who is the Hedman Husler Hedders DRO Nostalgia Nitro Challenge championship points leader says he will be at the next race -- the World Series of Drag Racing Aug. 28-29 at Cordova International Raceway -- with a new engine combination. 

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Race winner Shawn Bowen driving the family fuel coupe tuned by team owner and dad Mike Bowen ran both the Top Speed and Low ET of the meet. Bowen, who could not get down the track in under 10 seconds during qualifying, made up for that rather poor performance by delivering both the Low ET (5.79) and Top Speed (250+) on his way to the win on raceday. The Bowens had been the only team in the series super-cooling their nitro. The rules forbid cooling the nitro below a certain temp so the team is no longer cooling the nitro … but if any of their peers thought that might slow them down they were wrong. They had the field at Maple Grove "covered" by a tenth.

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The quickest and fastest Logghe chassied car in history? Troy Ray has a unique Funny Car/Altered. He has built an exact duplicate of an early Logghe Chassis which the NHRA has certified as legal for N/FC competition. He thinks the 6.874/206+ might be the quickest and fastest ET and speed for one of these chassis in a nitro burner. Ray bounced the car off of the wall competing as a fuel Alt at the first DRO race this year at Beacon Dragway and destroyed the front of the car. After the first pass at Maple Grove on the repaired car it wanted to dart right and left. The team passed on the second qualifying attempt and spent the evening towing the chassis around the pits setting the toe and camber of the front end so the car would steer. 

2015 POINTS
Hedman Husler Hedders DRO Nostalgia Nitro Challenge presented by VP Racing Fuels

1) Jimmy Young TF        177   Stephan McCain, car owner
2) Troy Ray AA/FA-FC     155   Troy Ray, car owner
3)*Marc White  AA/FA     110   Frank Ousley, car owner
4)*Shawn Bowen FC        106   Mike Bowen, car owner
5) Paul Romine FC        100   Paul Romine, car owner
6) Tara Graves FC         88   John Hale, car owner
7) Steve Nichols FC       87   Steve NicholS, car owner
8) Bazz Young  FC          86   Bazz Young, car owner
9) Mike Lewis  F/C        85   Henry Gutierrez, car owner
10)John Smith  FC          79   Henry Gutierrez, car owner

* 2015 National Event Winner