NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series
Pacific Raceways - Kent, WA
June 18-20, 2004
8:15 AM
Before we get serious with this report, here's the NHRA preview for the race; it's got some details to whet your appetite for the race weekend.
Division 6 racers in the groove at Pacific Raceways
Kent, WA - Pacific Raceways will host a round of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series presented by Dollarwise, June 18-20. The race is the fourth of seven in Northwest division competition where drivers in eight categories, including 270 mph Top Alcohol Dragster (TAD) and Top Alcohol Funny Car (TAFC), will compete for valuable points leading to divisional and national championships.
The division's Top Comp class and the Kerker Motorcycle Series, featuring the Sportsman Motorcycle category, will also run in conjunction with the race.
John Weaver, of Orting, WA, hopes to build on his Northwest Division Top Alcohol Funny Car (TAFC) points lead, after a big win last month at Mission Raceway, with his Pontiac Firebird. Standing firmly in Weaver's way will be defending division champion Bucky Austin. After qualifying in the top spot at Mission, the six-time Northwest Division Champion from Fife, WA, suffered rare mechanical problems in the second round of competition and watched Weaver move on to defeat Klamath Falls, OR's Clint Thompson in the final. Austin won the Pacific Raceways event and four others in 2003 to run away with the division title.
Former Northwest Division Champ Steve Federlin, of Oregon City, is in first place in the Top Alcohol Dragster (TAD) points after taking the win at Mission over former division champ Mark Hentges after the Federal Way, WA, racer had mechanic problems in the class final.
Gates at Pacific Raceways open at 8 a.m. each day. Qualifying and time trials will begin at 10 a.m. Friday and continue Saturday at the same time. TAD and TAFC will have three qualifying sessions on Friday at 3, 6 and 9 p.m. with eliminations slated to begin Saturday at 3 p.m. Eliminations in all other categories begin Sunday at 10 a.m.
Tickets for the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series are $15 Friday, $20 Saturday and $20 Sunday. Children 6 to 14 are $5 each day and children 5 and under are admitted free. There is also a special $40 three-day pass, which is available for advance purchase only.
Pacific Raceways is located at 31001 144th Ave., SE, in Kent. For more information call the track, (253) 639-5927, or visit www.PacificRaceways.com. For detailed results, go to Summit Racing's www.dragracecentral.com. And for a live on the internet broadcast from the track, check out www.rsbn.net.
10:00 AM
We're running late, as usual, but the truck is loaded and
ready
to go and we'll be in motion in just a few minutes. Cross your fingers
that
the next update on this page happens later today, instead of Sunday.
On
second thought, uncross them as the wireless aircard installation has
proven
to be more problematic than expected. Since there's no children around
to
show me how to do it, I'll just have to wait until next week to make
this
mobile platform truly mobile.
12:15 PM
"Have you ever been fingerprinted?" "Have you ever been to
court?"
Hmm, the questions keep changing every time I come through the border.
One
of these times I'm bound to trip over my tongue and give the wrong
answer.
The only possible hassle is the boxes of posters in the backseat.
"You're
not going to sell them, are you?" No sir, no sir. Not questioned were
the
bags full of camera equipment and the laptop computer. Oh well, onward
and
onward.
After screwing around all morning and starting out very late,
I'm
just in time for the mid-day rush hour going through Lynden and
vicinity
until I finally get on the I-5 at Bellingham. At this point (12:45 pm)
it's
obvious I'll miss the first qualifying session (set for 3:00 pm), as
the
traffic reports point to a slow, tortuous journey all the way to Kent.
Time
to take some deep breaths and practise my "I will not get annoyed, I
will
not get frustrated, I will keep smiling, no matter what" mantra.
3:10 PM
Can't believe that I've actually made it to
the track more or
less
on time. There's no media pass waiting at the gate, but a quick and
easy
bribe of a westcoast hemi shootout poster gets me through the
gate
and all the way to the tower for all the all-important blue wristband.
My
timing is nearly impeccable as the first pair of funny cars fire up as
I
receive the restricted area pass. The only caveat is that I have to
introduce
myself to track manager Russell Stevenson to gain his blessing to be on
the
starting line.
Funny Cars are first out of the lanes, and we’re almost on schedule, just 15 minutes behind. They must have been waiting for me to arrive before starting the “show”.
4:10 PM
Moving into the long, skinny cars, we’ve got the injected nitro nasties up first. Checking out the starting line are a veritable who’s who of A/Fuel technology and tuning. Bob “AutoMan” Ottow, Steve Boggs, Norm Grimes, and the man who has done so much to help this class and many of the racers in it, Forrest Lucas.
Didn’t take too long to see our first oildown from the dragsters, as Brandon Johnson makes a deposit. It must have been a small one, as we’re back up and running again in barely ten minutes.
Over the P.A. is a call for Brad Hadman to report to the Hank Coolidge pit area. All that shake in his qualifying attempt must have broken something.
4:30 PM
Mike Cofini strikes the tires and aborts another run. His luck, which was almost all good last year, has been taking a series of wrong turns this year. Last weekend at Woodburn appeared to be the low point, but we’ll have to wait and see how things turn out tonight and tomorrow for Mad Mike.
Wally Duperon (Mission Raceway Track Manager) is working this race from his familiar position at half track (checking the track for leaks after the cars do their burnouts). He says the track temp was recorded at 129 F. an hour ago. And the sun hasn’t let up in its intensity in the meantime.
Joey Severance performs a nearly smokeless burnout and backs up so quickly that it appears he may try to get a second shot at one, but instead stages and jumps into the current top spot with a very decent 5.51 – 254; excellent, considering the conditions.
Two more A/FD’s come up, and Morgan Lucas breaks into the 5.4’s with a 5.48 to bump Severance off the top of the totem pole. Mitch Myers, who ran back to back 5.26’s to win Woodburn a week ago, sounds just as strong, but only puts a 5.60 on the scoreboard.
After one session, the Top Alcohol Dragster field ranges from Lucas’s 5.48 to Kim Parker’s 5.70, with Ed Verenka right behind her at 5.71. The cars are due back from the pits in 90 minutes for the next session, under what should be much improved (cooler air and especially track, temperatures) conditions.
4:45 PM
Top Comp is up now and they appear to have a few more blown cars here than are usually seen at Mission. Sean Cowie continues his recent hot streak with an excellent 6.55 – 205. That’s not far off his personal best of 6.48 – 212 turned at Woodburn last week. Gee, from all the comments I’ve made about that event, it looks like I missed a pretty good race.
Other familiar, and not so familiar, faces in the lanes are Brian Barling in that ultra-neat front-engine dragster, John Evans in his still new dragster, and several cars I’ve never seen, such as the “Hartbraker” altered and the Village Transmission dragster.
5:45 PM
After a short lunch break (some Greek concoction of chicken and peppers in a wrap) it’s time to start wandering through the pits gathering any nuggets that dot our path.
Mike Cofini reports that he may be soon receiving a set of Larry Morgan Pro Stock heads that flow incredible amounts of air. Far in excess of even a Brad Fathead – reportedly 600+ cfm on the intake side.
His first attempt today was ruined by “too much clutch” as Mike struggles to contain his massive amounts of horsepower with an older style non-lockup clutch, until his new experimental unit arrives from East-West.
He still figures he’s ahead of last week’s run of bad luck at Woodburn, as the first session there saw him break a live axle on Friday, miss Saturday’s first session waiting for UPS to deliver a replacement from Chrisman’s, then miss making the field by less than one hundredth of a second in the final session, after softening the clutch to “marshmallow” status to be on the safe side.
6:15 PM
The cars have been called to the lanes, and despite running a little further behind schedule, the second qualifying session should be starting by 6:30. Several Funny Cars that missed the first round (Forrest LeBlanc, Shawn Nault, and Randy Parker) are leading the way as the lanes are filling out nicely.
6:58 PM
We’ve just finished the second round of Funny Car qualifying and there’s really not too much to get excited about. The cars didn’t step up nearly as far as I expected, with the exception of Roger Bateman’s very nice 5.88 in the Dave Dickison car. Bucky Austin had another boomer and used up his second engine of the day, leading the carnage parade, and the best pairing was saved for last, as Clint Thompson and John Weaver ran side-by-side 5.8’s to take the top two spots on the ladder.
7:00 PM
The dragsters are up now, but a quick look around the grandstands shows no more than 500 people in the stands. There’s another thousand or so in the staging lanes, the pits and wandering around the facility, but the spectator totals aren’t looking great for what should be the heart of the show tonight.
The bumping starts in the first pair as Brandon Johnson hooks up and bumps out Kim Parker. Then Mitch Myers moves all the way up to #1 with a great 5.47. The hits continue as the next pairing sees Steve Federlin jump way ahead of everyone with a great 5.41 at nearly 260 mph. The bubble is already down to 5.58 halfway through this second session.
Morgan Lucas and Joey Severance (the top two runners from the first round) come up next and Lucas puts his A/FD back on top with a 5.41 – 262.18 , for low e.t. and top speed of the meet…. so far. You can bet that those numbers won’t last.
At the conclusion of the second session, we have three cars in the 5.4’s, and five more in the 5.5’s, and the first two alternates at 5.70 and 5.71. The final round of qualifying, at sunset, should be awesome.
8:35 PM
Back in the pits and I bump into Brad Hansen (Top Alcohol Dragster driver, and now, owner) and hear about his recent purchase of John & Sean Hyland’s fuel flow bench.
Brad’s car won’t be ready until next year, but the ex-Chuck Hendrickson “Rain City Racing” entry will be a welcome addition to the Division Six ranks.
9:25 PM
Again running half an hour behind schedule, the last round of qualifying begins. Unlike the standard format for a divisional event, all the qualifying takes place today, so this is the last chance for some racers to make the field.
The “You bump me, I’ll bump you” games begin, with Dale Van Gundy knocking a surprisingly troubled (with Sean Brown and Les Davenport tuning assistance) Hank Coolidge out of the show. Then Randy Parker makes his last shot count by taking out Van Gundy with a nice 6.17 to set the bump spot.
Unfortunately the pass cost Parker his last healthy engine and he’s ultimately unable to make the first round tomorrow. And the rumour mill has him parked for the balance of the year as the Parker family has used up a boatload of parts in the first half of the season.
The remaining cars in the lanes are fighting for position only. Surrey’s Tim Nemeth shuts off after the burnout for no apparent reason. We’ll followup on that possible story tomorrow.
9:40 PM
As the dragsters start their final session, the grandstands are still holding barely 500 inhabitants, as, for whatever reason, Friday Night Under the Lights fails to grab the attention of possible drag racing fans. Maybe we’ll see the place fill up tomorrow night, but somehow I doubt it. And I’ve been told that a very healthy number of free tickets have been distributed to the local military, but I’ve seen nary a serviceman all night.
Mike Cofini makes good on his last shot, bumping Gregg Lawrence and putting Greg Tacke on the bubble (at 5.55), with a solid 5.54, but there’s a big blower bang at the finish line, and Mike might just have more trouble to deal with.
There’s still three cars, interestingly enough, all running nitro, that could fight their way back into the show: Gregg Lawrence, Gary Anderson, and Ed Verenka.
10:05 PM
Looks like Cofini did a lot more than bang the blower, as they’ve been cleaning the top tend for nearly half an hour. It’s getting really dark now, but the bank of lights behind the starting line is pretty bright and seems to throw the light quite a ways down the track.
More drama after we get going again, as Verenka just barely misses with a 5.58, going side-by-side with Mark Hentges’ 5.47 pass. Wow! Kim Parker does “keep her foot in it until the (shift) light comes on” and cards a very good 5.53 to bump Greg Tacke and put Cofini in the last spot. There is major jubilation on the starting line as the Parker family celebrates.
Gregg Lawrence is up next, but hold on, there’s oil in Parker’s lane and she’s already hurt an engine tonight. The attrition is really hitting that virtually unsponsored team hard. And the curfew is coming up soon.
10:30 PM
There’s still six cars in the staging lanes, a pair of Jet Funny Cars following them, and two rounds of the Gamblers Race after that. This is going to be a tight fit to beat the deadline.
We finally get going again and the final pair of dragsters makes everyone forget all the downtime as Lucas and Federlin run side-by-side 5.30’s (Lucas at 5.35 and Federlin with a 5.38) to close out the piston powered portion of the show.
10:55 PM
Looks like we’ve got just enough time to get way the heck out of the way and let the “weenie roasters” do their thing. I’m halfway through the pits on my way to the parking lot before they hit the afterburners and try to burn down the grandstand behind the starting line. An unreal spectacle to finish the show under the lights.
11:30 PM
Finally find the Comfort Inn hidden just off Pacific Highway in Federal Way, get checked in and start looking for a restaurant. It’s pretty late and the only thing close to a real meal available in the area is the ubiquitous Dennys. Oh well, if I delete half the food on the plate, there’s got to be some nutritional value somewhere on the menu.
1:00 AM
Time to turn out the lights and not bother setting the alarm as tomorrow’s alcohol action doesn’t begin until 3 pm again. What a luxury this schedule is for slackers like me. Tune in again tomorrow for all the news and updates on what happened behind the scenes tonight.
