Saturday's Report
The view from the cheapest seat - Day Two
After a very long first day of the annual pilgrimage to the nitro mecca Pacific Raceways - and we've got to say that it's testing our religious beliefs in the CH3NO2 deity this weekend - it's time to get serious and smack down the track today. Get down and dirty and keep those tires hooked and booking instead of spinning and smoking.
But where's all the missing race cars? Where are the over-full fields of yore? The hard-fought battles to claw a way into the field and celebrate just qualifying? The fact is that only THREE, yes three cars will fail to advance to eliminations this weekend. Three non-qualifiers at a national event? Almost unheard of.
One of the embarassed three was last night's crash victim, comp racer Howie Stevens, who was DQ'd on his first qualifying attempt, then crashed on his second to miss the field. With 17 nitro Funny Cars on hand, one of them is going to draw the shortest straw and miss the show, while Pro Stock has one competitor facing the same fate.
The other pro and pro-sportsman (do they even use that term anymore?) fields are shorthanded, with only 15 Top Fuel cars, 13 Top Alcohol Funny Cars and just 12 Top Alcohol Dragsters. Competition eliminator had just 25 cars "fighting" for 32 spots before Stevens eliminated himself. And the other categories are "all-run" just like in the primary school track meets where everyone wins a participation medal. Maybe that's a little harsh, but if you don't have to work to get in the show, where's the accomplishment?
This morning dawned cloudy and decidedly cooler, but with a forecast of improving weather throughout the day, although with a high temp about 10 degrees (F) cooler than yesterday. A welcome change to be sure for racers, crews and spectators alike. But as I start this report just after 9:00 am, the clouds are almost all gone and the thermometer is climbing quickly.
The first race cars are filling the staging lanes with Super Street leading off and Comp eliminator running their final qualifying session at 11:00 am to signal the start of the serious racing. Then the big boys come out to play, starting with Pro Stock at noon and continuing with the first session of the day for the fuel cars at 12:30 pm.
3:00 PM UPDATE:
Comp eliminator had a safe and successful final qualifying session with low qualifier Rob Harrison improving yet again, carding a 7.645 at over 175 mph to solidify his hold on the top spot going into this afternoon's first round of eliminations. Fellow BC'er, Langley's Bob Marhsall picked up another few thousandths in his very consistent car (ran 7.11, 7.10 and 7.10 in qualifying) to a best of 7.10 at 191+ mph to remain stuck in the "lucky" #13 spot.
Other Canadian standouts in Comp were Alberta's Dale Giroux and Casey Plazier, with a .61-second under the index pass by Giroux putting him in the #6 and a .50 under for Plazier to place him 14th. With four cars in the field of 24, including two in the top six, there's a chance for a Canadian champion this weekend in Comp.
As the Pro Stock cars rolled out at the stroke of noon, the conditions were much better than yesterday's test of extremes. The air temp was only 76 F and the track a "balmy" 111 F, with a corrected air reading of only 2166 ft. Many degrees and 1000 feet better than yesterday afternoon and certain to produce even better performances. The only slight downside was the 49% humidity but as the altitude showed, it wasn't a major factor and as the air temp increases it will decrease throughout the afternoon.
As the Pro Stock session goes on, car after car picks up three to five hundredths of a second until Johnny Gray and Mike Edwards break into the 50-zone with side-by-side 6.59's. Edwards quicker by a thousandth of a second and Gray faster by two tenths of a mile per hour. No one else joined them in the 50's but the field as a whole tightened up some more and the bump spot of 6.741 left Erica Enders on the outside of the field by just 4-thousandths.
Following the semi-fast door cars, the "Kings of the Sport" (been a while since you've read that term, eh?) came out and started working on some more go-fast. Led by two Washington state racers, "Renton Ron" Smith and Terry Haddock, both of whom got down the track without major difficulty other than tire smoke for Haddock. Four of the next six cars ran in the 4.0 zone, but the lack of 3's on the qualifying sheets was starting to wear on everyone.
Until McClenathan broke the string and pushed into the 3's with a decent, not great, just decent 3.94, followed in quick succession by Larry Dixon's 3.89 and a pair of 3.9's to close the session: 3.93 by Schumacher and 3.92 by the low qualifier (from last night) Doug Kalitta. Altogether, an okay but nothing to write home about, session. Maybe the funny cars could find their mojo next.
With the altitude up over 2300 feet, air at 80 F and track temp up marginally to 114 F. the floppers weren't going to have it much easier. Or worse. No excuses, just perform baby.
In an inauspicious start, Grant Downing had his engine lay down again and shut off early, thankfully without dropping anything wet and slippery or hot and shiny on the track. In the next pair, Jeff Diehl made his first lap of the race, dropping Downing into the #15 and in serious danger of missing the field, despite his 4.72 pass yesterday.
In case you're not familiar with the system for seeding cars on the first day of professional qualifying, only the top 12 cars keep their first day times and the other cars start over with no qualifying time on Saturday. It can and occasionally does happen that a time from the first day that would have been good enough to make the 16-car field is dropped from the list and replaced with a slower time from the second day. Fair? There's pros and cons to it but it does force the racers to make every lap count, especially on the first day.
Confirming that Downing was in trouble, the next pair of cars down the track bump him into the dreaded #17 spot, possibly making the difference between a $10,000 payday tomorrow (first round loser) or the $3K paid to the first alternate.
The session continued with runs ranging from fair to mediocre until Robert Hight saves the best for last and backs up yesterday's 4.194 with a 4.199 for the best of the round and an even firmer grip on the top qualifying spot. And the funny cars still can't seem to mile-per-hour as Worsham's 293.54 was the best of the meet so far.
With only one qualifying session left for the fuelers, things are not looking that great. So far at least. But you just never know what's going to happen in any given race, or any particular pair, or any pass. With the pro cars out of the way, it was time to bring back alcohol.... dragsters and funny cars that is.
The long cars came up first and with just 12 cars on hand, and only 11 of them being relatively healthy, it wasn't a surprise to see the Bill Edwards team conspicuous by their absence. The first pair out of the lanes showed marked improvement with Larry Miersch picking up nearly a tenth and Art Trautman nearly six seconds as he broke into the 6's in his struggling A/Fuel car.
The next pairing of Mike Austin and Courtney Force both picked up a few hundredths and stayed in the 5.40's while the following duo ran great side-by-side 5.39's with Brittany Force moving up three spots to the #8 qualifying spot and Severance holding his #4 position.
Dale Carlson and Mark Niver ran next and both shut off early with engine problems, setting up the final pairing of qualifying which matched the two hittingest hitters at this event, Chris "#1" Demke and Shawn "#2" Cowie. They didn't disappoint as the scoreboards lit up with almost identical 5.32's, Demke still .005 quicker and setting top speed of the meet (to this point) at 270.10 mph. What a great battle to end Top Alcohol Dragster qualifying.
The 13-car Alcohol Funny Car contingent all appeared in the staging lanes this time, with several close battles for position being played out and the final round of the rained-out Mission divisional race being featured as the final pair of the session.
Starting things off with a real stunner, Doug Gordon went from the outhouse to the penthouse in just 5.62 seconds, nearly hitting 260 mph in the process to jump all the way to the top of the ladder. He definitely served notice on the rest of the field with that run. Northwest heavy Clint Thompson came out next and again failed to rotate the earth, pedalling his way to a 6.0 timeslip and cementing his position at the bottom of the field.
Three out of the next four cars showed small improvements, but position changes were minimal, with only Larry Miner changing, moving down one notch to eighth. In the second to last pair of the session Steve Gasparelli put up a big number on the scoreboard, notching a much-improved 5.63 to jump into the number #2 spot. And to close out the session, John Lombardo Jr. and Sean O'Bannon rang up matching 5.6's to move up one spot each.
If not for Clint Thompson's tribulations, it would have been an all 5-second field, with the top ten cars in the 5.70's and quicker.
Just before the final pro qualifying, the Comp(licated) cars came out for their first round of eliminations. It was definitely not a good day to be Canadian, as all four Canucks were gone by the end of the round. First, and biggest, to fall was low qualifier Rob Harrison, who redlighted away a sure win as his opponent got very out of shape and shut off. Harrison slowly coasted down, disgusted with himself no doubt as he watched his weekend ended by the big winlight on the other lane's scoreboard.
Langley's Bob Marshall laid down another 7-teen but couldn't put enough of a holeshot on his opponent to overcome a six hundredths performance disadvantage and get to the second round. The Alberta cars of Giroux and Plazier suffered losing but different fates, as Giroux redlighted by .008 second anbd Plazier cut a great light, ran well, but lost by .021 second. Tough losses all, and the end of the event for all of them.
5:30 PM UPDATE:
With the atmospheric conditions at their worst for the day (82 F air, 127 F track, 46% humidity and over 2500 feet of corrected altitude, the Pro Stocks got to test the track first in the final pro qualifying session.
I could sum up the round as "nothing to write home about", but I'm still writing, aren't I? Half the cars failed to improve and the other half simply overpowered the track, got out of shape or shook the tires HARD and shut off very early. No position changes and the only non-qualified car stayed in that position as Erica Enders' weekend was over in just 12 seconds - the length of time it took to coast down the track after she shut off.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, the slowest to the fastest, the... you get the picture as the Top Fuel cars come up and.... Chrisman smokes the tires early in his solo pass, Grubnic hazes them later on his solo, McMillen loses grip on his pass, but Steve Torrence rips off a 4-flat to bring some semblance of performance potential to the assembled masses in the grandstands.
That prompts a slight aside to this story, as the stands never filled on what is traditionally the best attended day of the nationals, and at no time did they reach more than 3/4 full. Not a bad crowd, but definitely down on previous years. I've already covered (in the preview) possible reasons for this scenario, but it's really noticeable.
The last four pairs go through the motions, each one featuring a 3-second run alongside a four second or slower pass and the final session saw Larry Dixon's 3.91 at 309 mph "stand out" as the best of the round. It should be noted that only 12 of the 15 cars on site came out to run, with Ron "One Run" Smith, Terry Haddock and Mike Strasburg not making the call.
Moving to the nitro funny cars, the lanes are nearly full with only Gary Densham remaining in the pits. Solidly placed in the field with a pretty well unbumpable 4.28 pass earlier, he's elected to not spend another pension check on the nitro it'll take to run this session. Another low-buck racer, Jeff Diehl is in the lanes, trying to defend his bump spot position.
Coming out of the lanes is the Kiwi, Grant Downing, and his string of awful luck this weekend follows him to the 660 foot lights where the engine comes undone again and he slows to a 5.17 pass, missing the field by 5-hundredths of a second. Insult and injury and all that, as his tuning consultant Chuck Worsham is really scratching his head now. As soon as Downing lights up the scoreboard, the bump spot boy, Jeff Diehl, pulls out of line and heads back to the pits as he's safe and qualified.
Twenty minutes later we're back in action and Brian Thiel wastes an engine at the finish line, leaving another big trail of parts and oil in the shutdown area. More downtime in the hot afternoon sun and the fans are starting to trickle away as the clock ticks away. 15 more minutes of cleanup time and we finally get the rest of the round completed with only one errant blower belt to slow things down for just a few seconds.
The performances weren't any better than earlier sessions, with no 4-teens and nary a side-by-side race for the whole round. The only pair even close together were Wilkerson and Cruz Pedregon and that only stayed that way for about 400 feet. Best of the round was the Cruzer's 4.22 at 292 mph. The group as whole was running well below everyone's expectations for fuel funny car and not a good portent for eliminations tomorrow. One position change of note was Pedregon's big jump from #14 to #3, while everyone else stayed the same or dropped one notch.
Next up is the first round of eliminations for Top Alcohol, the second round off Comp, and second and third rounds of the various super/stock categories until the 9:00 pm curfew.
7:00 PM UPDATE:
It's been a very long 90 minutes to get through the first round of eliminations for Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car. Do the math: 5 1/2 pairs of dragsters, 6 1/2 pairs of funny cars, 90 minutes. Average time per pair: 7 1/2 minutes. Priceless? Hardly.
The reason? Carnage, breakage, destruction and miscellaneous mayhem. It started early with Joey Severance banging the big screw blower at the 1000 ft. mark in the first pair of dragsters to let Kyle Rizzoli sneak past for the win. At least there wasn't any serious cleanup time required.
The next pair saw another injected vs. blown battle and the fueler of Art "The Salmon" Trautman didn't even contest it, as he couldn't select reverse (probably clutch pack issues) and had to idle through after the burnout. With the free pass to the quarter-finals Shawn Cowie gave it all he had and after a great 5.36 pass, went through the lights trailing smoke.... and oil.
With that cleanup done, a pair of injected cars ran next, and Larry Miersch gave the win to a slower Mark Niver, redlighting by over two tenths of a second. Next up was another alky vs. nitro tilt with the blown car of Mike Austin winning easily, leaving on young Ms. C. Force, and outrunning her to win by four car lengths.
Then the drama started as Courtney blows a rear tire just before the finish line, taking out a large section of the rear wing in the process, and making her work very hard to keep the car off the wall. Thankfully her opponent, Austin, was well ahead and out of the way of the out-of-control dragster. Courtney was seen out of the car and in the arms of her Mom and Dad, just fine and smiling while the cleanup crews went to work once more. By the way, there's been no word yet on what may have caused the tire to blow and anything reported here would be speculation.
After the long cleanup of debris from Force's tire explosion, the next pair turned into a solo as the Hugh Ridley crew were unable to fire the Dale Carlson-driven car and Brittany Force took a troubled single pass, with a cylinder out all the way, and giving up lane choice to Shawn Cowie in the second round.
The final pair of the first round turned into yet another single as Bill Edwards Jr. failed to appear and Chris Demke took to the stage by himself for an absolutely bravura performance: 5.319 at 270.37 mph, low e.t. and top speed of the meet. A large amount of salvation after a mostly forgettable round of racing.
The short carbon-clad cars came out next, with low qualifier Doug Gordon making a solid opening pass.... until the 1000 ft. mark where the blower went BANG and he slowed quickly. Next up were two hitters, with snake-bit Clint Thompson finding a way to lose as he blows an engine and lets Gasparelli win with a pass almost identical to his #2 qualifying 5.63 - 257 mph clocking.
After yet another long cleanup, the scheduled Larry Miner vs. John Evanchuk match turned into a bye for Evanchuk as Miner was unable to appear and Evanchuk slowed and shut off early to a 5.84 at only 231 mph. No oil or parts on the track though and at this point, that's about all we can hope for. We're well over an hour into this round of alcohol eliminations and there's still four pairs left to run. Spectator count at this point: approaching negative numbers.
After the lone remaining Canadian alky flopper of Ken Webster got past Sean Bellemeur's 5.83 with a rather ordinary 5.74, the last three winners of the round all ran low 5.60's to advance. Leading the charge with the provisional low e.t. of the meet was Sean O'Bannon at 5.605, followed closely by John Lombardo Jr. at 5.614, and Brian Hough at a pretty good 5.639.
The three losing cars were all Northwest based, and only Oregon's Jeff Ashwell gave a good fight, carding a losing 5.86 against O'Bannon. And in the final alcohol pair of the round, Washington's Dave Germain was shut off before staging to possibly prevent another episode of "clean me if you can" on the track-cam.
With all the "serious" cars done for the day and no Canucks left in Comp eliminator, it was time to head for the motel, the restaurant and get some sleep before coming back tomorrow for the final day of eliminations of the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways. Join us for the in-depth reports we're known for here at Northern... I mean SpeedZone.
That's it from Pacific Raceways for the second day of qualifying from the NHRA Northwest Nationals