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Fire, Smoke & Thunder, Bucky's Mufflers, Brakes & Radiators NHRA National Open, Pacific Raceways, Seattle WA, April 28, 29, 2007
We didn't arrive until late Friday night, so missed the carnage. Oregon's Rich Bailey had a nasty wreck in his Top Dragster. He explains what happened here. Sounds like the team is hard at it to be ready for Woodburn in a few weeks. Second bit of disaster was when Bob Israelson suffered through a rather intense nitrous burp that damaged the front end of his Top Sportsman Stingray and put the scoop into a low Earth orbit. No word on the condition of the Vette, but understand some alloy pieces were found some distance away. Speaking of orbit, Brad Plourd set his own altitude record when the hood of his Old Super Stocker took flight in the lights on Friday. He returned to go rounds Sunday. Saturday saw nitro day at PR with the biggest scare coming from the AA/FA of Dave Hix who lit up at about 1000 ft. and burned all the way up the hill. Did not hear if he was injured but seeing the car in the pits later showed just a few bubbles on the left front of the pretty Bantam body. Bucky Austin actually leased the facility and sponsored the 'Fire, Smoke & Thunder' portion of the Open on Saturday. Because of all the sportsman cars and a few 'leaks' we didn't get to see as much nitro as we could have, but what we did see was pretty cool. We didn't get all the names, and no result sheets, so am working from video clips, so please excuse any errors. There were four Fuel Altereds, five nostalgia nitro floppers, two AA/FDs, six TAD/AFD D6 regulars, four AA Supercharged gassers, four Junior Fuelers, three jet floppers, and Ed Jones Stagecoach wheelstander. Feature car highlights were many and in Funny Car included Bucky's new Arrow running a 1000ft 6.13/171.73 that was rumored to have included the quickest 60ft ever recorded by one of these cars. Terry Capp laying down a magical 6.26/240.34 number in the Bubble Up Trans Am. (PS, both cars are booked for the Mission Open). Best of the rest was the 'Sons of Thunder' Corvette making two full passes, both over 220, including a best of 6.19/225.48. The TAD/AFD cars were well represented by Joey Severence, Brandon Johnson, Gregg Lawrence and Mark Hentges. Rookie Shawn Cowie started with a nice 5.53/235.89 'dancing in the lights' pass then came back with a jaw-dropping 5.32/270.05 number that had Bucky smiling and saying "It was in last year's trim. When we step it up, that thing'll run 280". Next best number were a 6.47/260.61 and 5.59/235.89 out of Severence, and a 5.56/256.65 from Johnson. Victoria's Phil Ruskowsi was on hand with his small block powered AAFD and managed a best of 7.44/163 testing for some gremlins that haunted them last year. The Lavoi's were here from Alberta with their awesome front-motored AFD cars, Claude running 6.47/202.06, 6.27/224.21 and a 6.24/223. Wife Lisa had one wild squirrly pass resulting in a 7.50/181.74. Some wicked Fuel Altered hits, a number of out-of-shape gasser runs and despite the down time a decent effort by all involved. Dave Hix only made the one run described above, Nasty Benjamin had problems and could only muster a 8.27/135.33 while the Carson City Nevada 'Cheap Thrills' team laid down a questionable 5.47 at only 205.82 followed by a boomer, small fire shut off pass. Rich Howell was here in a car we have not seen before and was shut off once then powered to a half track 7.02/114.32 that showed some awesome potential. Four A Gas Supercharged cars put on a great show. They included Dave Inglis, Mike Molea, Mitch Chaimberlin and the Bad Habit '41 Willys. Some exciting runs that used up the entire lane, and a bunch of sixes that saw a best of 6.85/195 final out of Molea in the 'final' that was defeated by a holeshot 7.05/191.05 from Chamberlin. Four A/ND cars saw a number of good runs over 190mph in the mid seven second zone. The jets ran great including a best of 5.97/260, and Ed Jones put on his usual popular two wheel show with a number of appearances throughout the weekend. The Open portion of the weekend was great with 444 cars on hand. And to top it all off was done a half hour before the 5:30 p.m. curfew Sunday. Unfortunately a few glitches in the Junior Dragster portion, which ran the entire program starting at 5:00 p.m. Saturday did not finish until about 10:15 that night. The marathon that saw a ton of really, really nice cars had Cydney DeFrang of Auburn qualify number one in Lightening with a 0.000 then a pair of Olympia drivers going at it in the final under the lights. Jake Daniel emerged victorious, the number two qualifier running .084/8.027/81.98 to defeat Jake Daniel's -.005 red light. Thunder Had number one qualifier Lane Cavar from Puyallup (0.007) runner up to Brianna Lindsey also from Puyallup, the winner going .263/14.033/43.73 to defeat a .254/13.049/52.02. Sorry I don't have round sheets and the final round sheets do not list dial-ins.
Other stuff we recall from TC included the debut of Jon Riedel doing some wild wheelies in his super quick digger, Todd Hoerner having tire shake problems with his powerful new mid six second Steve Schmidt powered Pontiac, and number one qualifier (6.708/200.65) Greg Carlile going rounds in his quick digger.
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