2005 IHRA Rocky Mountain Nationals Photo Page #1

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Fast Mouse

June 26, 2005
Sunday photo page #1 from the Rocky Mountain Nationals

We're still working on the photo captions and it's already Tuesday afternoon. This might take all week to get finished as we have a grand total of 237 pics from Sunday. It's all IHRA's fault for giving me a photo vest. Stay tuned and keep hitting the reload/refresh button each time you access this page.

This is the view at about 9am Sunday; wet track and very gloomy skies, but no rain falling.

As you can see the "freshly washed" grandstands are still sorely lacking for inhabitants.

Despite the gloomy conditions, the staging lanes start filling for the time trial (qualifying was finished on Friday) run that all sportsman cars were allowed prior to eliminations. Good move to help prep the track for the fast guys too.

And a little after 10am the first cars started going down the track in still rather cool and very humid (97% at the start of the day) conditions.

Pitted almost next door to our mobile headquarters in the pro pits is the Jim Sickles car.

Top Sportsman competitor... hang on while I check out who it is on DRC... and it's Roy Lazic of Kelowna, BC, with his very clean '88 Firebird.

Right behind Lazic is Wayne Hofer's beautiful '63 Nova out of Lethbridge (Alberta). THe WT Racing entry is a solid 6-second performer.

Here's the front view of the Chevy.

Another Alberta car in the lanes is John Genovese's '94 Daytona running a big-block Mopar.

This outstanding looking and running car (went all the way to the finals) is the almost brand new Pro Stock chassied 2004 Pontiac Grand-Am of Langley's Bob Marshall.

Front view of Marshall's TCS-sponsored (not a difficult sell as he owns the company) Pontiac.

Before we head up the stairs to gather our starting-line photo vest, here's a pair of door cars warming the tires and trying to put some heat into the frigid asphalt.

Staged and ready to rock is Illinoi's Tony Gillig in his very sharp '04 Mustang.

As the first round of Pro eliminations gets underway, the hospitality suites in the tower are filling up with eager race fans.

Now it's time for a few more pictures of the Hooters girls. Never enough, is there?

Okay, back to the action with an almost too quick to capture burnout by Mt. Airy, Maryland's Frank Gugliotta in his 2004 Ford Escort.

Taking instructions from his crewman as he moves into prestage is Gugliotta. He was successful, laying down a strong 6.53 to defeat a red-lighting Elijah Morton.

Big smoky burnout by #1 qualifier Robert Patrick in his '04 Ford Mustang Cobra.

He backs up carefully, not wanting to give anything away on his first round bye run.

And launches hard enroute to an excellent 6.48 at 212.96 mph. Yes, another new track e.t. record to boot.

Fast forward... as in VERY fast forward to Pro Mod and here's the crowd favourite: Calgary's Rick DiStefano.

Backing up before staging against Montana's Vern Mills, Ricky D looks ready to rumble.....

but first we've got some emergency Xmas tree repair by electronics guru Jeff Foster, who plugs in the wire to power it. How it became disconnected is anyone's guess, but it wasn't me that stepped on the cord.... and I'm sticking to that story.