44th Pepsi Nightfire Nationals at Boise, Idaho

Bartone regains form and Krabill scores record 4th FC title

Words and photos by Brian Losness

Bill Dunlap (near lane) and Tony Bartone in the Top Fuel final.

The 2015 Pepsi Nightfire Nationals at Firebird Raceway was full of intrigue. There were wildfires all around the area of Idaho, Oregon and Nevada borders, which closed a major traffic artery between Winnemucca, Nev., and Boise, Idaho. This made it difficult for many of the teams coming from Northern California to get to the Eagle, Idaho, area northwest of Boise. A couple of the haulers were stopped just outside of Winnemucca and were forced to wait nearly six hours before being let through.

Eight cars were on the property in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. Four fuel altereds, three Pro Mods, four jet cars, four alcohol funny cars, and Ed and Wendy Jones with the Stage Coach wheelstander made up the professional side of the show.

One of the largest fields in recent memory of Bracketter (Super Pro) cars both full bodied and open wheel were on hand at the Nightfires. Many of those cars would also compete in the Top Fire race (Top Sportsman and Top Dragster).

The local weathermen at the beginning of the week were calling for temperatures around the middle eighties for Friday through Sunday. Well…they lied. Friday temps were 106 degrees at 5 p.m., but this did not deter the racers or for that matter the crowd as a nice group of fans made their way out to the track.

The rest of the weekend the place was packed and, according to General Manager Scott New, Sunday’s crowd was the biggest they ever had. The racing was exciting and close for sure.


To enhance the fun fans and racers had all weekend, former NHRA Funny Car World Champion “Fast” Jack Beckman was on hand for the entire weekend, racing in Bracketter using local racer Dick VanderMeer’s car, and entertaining and educating the fans on the public address system when the professional cars were running.

TOP FUEL

In Q1 of Top Fuel many of the teams outwardly stated they were only going to run their cars to around the 1,000-foot mark to gauge the track and the conditions. This was indicative of the speeds recorded. On the provisional pole was 2014 Champion Tony Bartone 5.82/216.45 followed by Rick Williams in the Team Craig dragster at 5.87/206.57.

Rounding out the top three was Bowling Green winner, the 74-year-old Bill Dunlap, at 5.91/237.09.

Not making the first session was Brendan Murry. The general consensus of the drivers and crew chiefs was the track was smooth as glass, but the high temperatures on Friday were playing havoc with it, which is completely understandable.

Q2 of Top Fuel

With baseline passes made, many of the crew chiefs saw the slightly cooler temperatures and very sticky starting line as a chance to test a raceday tune up. However, even with the cooler ambient temperatures, the cloudless skies allowed the sun to beat down on the racetrack.

So, all the other teams got their cars to 300 feet or so and smoked the tires.

Team Craig pulled to the starting line, and crew chief John Russell had that look in his eye. Knowing something that nobody else did, he had formulated a plan. At the green his driver hit the loud pedal and the long blue dragster hung the front end in the air and went straight and true down the track and the score boards rung up an impressive 5.91 at 245.23. It didn’t move him up in qualifying but it was a shot across the bow of the rest of the Top Fuel teams.