RECORDS FALL AT RICHMOND

by Jeff Burk
Photos by Jeff Burk
Crash sequence by Todd Dziadosz

DOORSLAMMERS RULE

Richmond is one stop on the NHRA tour where the fans seem to like Pro Stock and Pro Stock Truck as much if not more than they like the nitro classes. The fans seem to expect record performances from the doorslammers and this year, despite a serious bump at half track in both lanes, the door cars delivered.

Both the Pro Stock field and the Pro Stock Truck field were the quickest in history. The bump in Pro Stock was a record 6.905 and the bump in truck was a record 7.544. The truck racers also delivered world records for speed and elapsed times and Jeg Coughlin Jr tied records held by legendary Pro Stock racers Bob Glidden and Lee Shepherd by winning his fifth race in six starts.

Unfortunately for nitro fans, they didn’t get the same kind of record setting performance from their heroes. They did, however, get a race that saw the drivers ability to compensate for a marginal track mean more than the tuners ability to just over-power the competition. Both Larry Dixon and John Force got to the winners circle more because of their driving skills than horsepower. Dixon showed his stuff in a tire smoking semi-final win that got his team to the finals in Top Fuel and Force got his second win of the season in the finals doing the same thing.

SLAGLE QUALIFIES NO. 4, CRASHES

Tim Slagle, 44, from Fairfax, Virginia went out of control and hit the retaining wall near the top end in a crash that looked fairly horrific (sequence above) during the first round of qualifying. Slagle, a longtime Federal-Mogul Funny Car competitor, clocked a 5.623 at 235.02 in his Chicken Chokers dragster and was number 4 qualifier. Slagle was checked out at the local hospital and received only minor injuries. Unfortunately, the car was unable to continue.

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