Round One Top Fuel

With eliminations beginning at 4:30 in the afternoon, it was going to be a guessing game for many of the crew chiefs. Atmospheric conditions, track conditions, and amount of debris in the air from local wildfires.

The first pair out was Sorokin and Dusty Green. Sorokin put five hundredths on Green at the starting line, and paired that with McClennan’s 5.87/218.80 tune-up to cover the Pleasant Hill, Calif., driver’s 5.96 at 208.36 mph.

The second pair featured two former and current alcohol funny car drivers, Bartone and Ron August Jr. at the wheel of Mike Fuller’s “Forever Young”. The cars left the starting line tied together but the Boggs tune-up was just too stout and he took the win 5.84/240.77 to cover August’s 6.52/169.34.

Third pair was worth the price of admission. Jim Murphy (shown) verses Rick Williamson. If one looked at this match up on paper it would be simple: Williamson in a cake walk. However, they don’t drag race on paper, not to say Russell took Murphy and Leong lightly because he would not. However, as was stated earlier after Q3, Leong had that look in his eye. He said just before first round, “If it goes to 300 feet it should go all the way.”

At the green Murphy was on his game, .086 on the tree, and Leong’s prophecy was correct as the car ran a 5.77/243.55 to cover Williamson’s 5.99/237.59. In the interest of fair reporting, Williamson’s car broke a wrist pin at about 400 feet and ran the rest of the way on seven.

In the last run of round, one Bill Dunlap got a single and Shelar and Bellemeur gave the rest of the field something to think about as the High Speed car went 5.80/245.90 shutting off early.

Round Two Top Fuel

Bill Dunlap

First out would be High Speed and Champion, Dunlap verses Sorokin. There was a huge trash in the Champion camp between rounds and when the cars went to do their burnouts it appeared as though “Big Red” (Champion) was wounded, as it never really did a burnout. However at the green Sorokin was out huge on Dunlap (.059 to .118) and held that lead until 600 feet when High Speed was just that and went around Sorokin and took the win 5.79/250.97 to cover Sorokin’s shut off 6.27/203.86.

The final pair was going to be another Titanic match up, Bartone and Murphy. The two crew chiefs have forgotten more about fuel car racing than most of us will ever know. As Bartone did his burnout, there seemed to be a glitch with Murphy’s protocol, and he began his process very late behind Bartone. It seems as though there was possibly an issue with the clutch stall as Murphy was having to rev the engine to get the car to move up to the starting line; it took some time and then it appears Murphy got in a bit too deep. At the green Murphy went red -.039, but Murphy ran it out anyway to get the numbers running a 5.79/241.20 for naught. In the other lane Bartone’s car looked like it was bolted to a paint shaker at Home Depot, and he coasted to the win 13.23/65.76 to go to his third consecutive Nightfire finals.