The latest update as of July 10, 2021
Friday's qualifying for Top Alcohol (Funny Car & Dragster) was completed at Woodburn Dragstrip and a full field of dragsters, plus an alternate, took part. The Funny Car field swelled to seven from Thursday's five, so the number of cars in competition will make for a good show during eliminations this afternoon. Leading the dragsters, was the lone Canadian competing in the event, Langley BC's Shawn Cowie as he continues his quest for a first national championship. His first session 5.235 - 278.81 led the field, with Chris Demke second on the sheet with a 5.297 - 272.31. From there the numbers trailed down to Kim Parker's bump spot 5.501 - 269.13, followed closely by the sole alternate, Trevor Larkin, who fell just three thousdandths short at 5.504 - 265.64.
On the Funny Car side, Mike Doushgounian made quite an impact in his season debut, clocking a top qualifying 5.543 - 263.08 to lead national contenders Brian Hough, who took the #2 spot with a close 5.572 - 265.33, while defending national champion, Doug Gordon finished down in the #5 spot with a 5.609 - 265.72 (top speed of the day) timelsip. Finishing above Gordon on the list was Oregon's Chris Marshall with a 5.591 - 263.92 and Colorado's Terry Ruckman (also at his first race of the season) with a solid 5.608 - 260.41 for the #4 spot. A bit of a surprise was seeing Nick Januik (currently #6 in national points) at the bottom of the field in the #7 spot with a troubled best (in the final session) of 7.836 - 96.25, after two earlier efforts in the 9-second zone.
With his top qualifying spot in TA/FC, Doushgounian earned the first round bye, but will have some serious opposition in the semi-finals, having to face either Terry Ruckman or Doug Gordon. Other first round pairings feature Brian Hough with lane choice over Nick Januik, and Chris Marshall having his pick over fellow Division Six racer, Randy Parker. In the TA/Dragster field, there's an even balance of four injected nitro and four blown alcohol cars. There will be two nitro vs alky matchups, with Cowie facing Kim Parker, and Chris Demke paired up with Mitch Myers. The it's blown vs blown as Joey Severance faces Mike Austin, and finally a pair of nitro burners as Casey Grisel faces Garrett Bateman.
If every car runs to their potential, there won't be any easy races in either field and by the final rounds roll around at 5pm, the competition should be especially fierce. We'll update this page with results during the afternoon and update the national points standings tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in Wichita, the FUNNY CAR CHAOS gang completed two rounds of qualifying last night at Kansas International Dragway's 58th annual Summer Nationals. The "usual suspects" Kirk Williams and Ken Singleton finished the evening in the #1 (Williams with a 3.725 - 203.80) and #2 (Singleton with a 3.794 - 202.25 positions. They were the only cars in the 3.70's and over 200 mph, as the #3 qualifier, Mike Newkirk finished well back with a best of 3.936 - 188.44 clocking. From there, the list dropped into the 4.10's (Shayne Lawson), then the 4.20's (three cars). The provisional bump spot for the "A" field was taken by Jim "Wicked Quick" Chase at a leisurely 4.402 - 165.20 pace.
From there, the "B" field stretched from #9's Chris "Brutus" Schneider's 4.471 - 157.18 time down to the #16 car on the list, Justin Herbst at 4.731 - 147.88. The "C" field started with #17 Scott Pareso at 4.756 - 146.82, and finished with #24's Robin Rish 5.577 - 129.65 at the bottom of the field. Sitting on the outside going into today's final qualifying session were series regulars Keith Jackson and Dustin Bradford who failed to complete a pass, while newcomers Tony Arcuri and Alex Barker both posted e.t.'s that fell well short of the field.
We will have results from that final qualifier and eliminations posted tomorrow, along with what we hope are a large batch of photos from our correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder.
2:00 PM UPDATE
The first round of eliminations at Woodburn have been run, and there were two lower qualified cars advancing in Top Alcohol Dragster: #7 qualifier Mitch Myers over #2 Chris Demke. Demke left first by two hundredths, and held the lead until half track, when Myers' A/Fuel horsepower started to take over, but at the 1000' mark, Demke was still leading by .007 before the engine shut down (I'm guessing the blower backfired or the belt came off) and he coasted to the loss at 5.901 - 195.95 to Myers' improved (over qualifying) 5.333 - 270.43 clocking.
The second "upset" saw Garrett Bateman come out of the #5 spot to take the win over #4 qualified Casey Grisel. With only two hundredths of a second separating them in qualifying, it could be called a "pick 'em" race, but after holding the lead until nearly half track, Grisel apparently was forced to pedal and fell back badly before getting on the loud pedal again to stop the timers at 5.801 - 253.87. However, that was a long way behind Bateman's winning time of 5.349 - 276.72.
The two featured protagonists coming into the event, Shawn Cowie and Joey Severance, both advanced easily, with Cowie pounding out a new low e.t. of the meet 5.232 - 278.37 to cover Kim Parker's valiant effort of 5.593 - 262.00. Parker left first by nearly five hundredths, but Cowie took the lead before the 60' clocks and steadily increased the gap to the finish line. In the other pairing, Severance improved slightly over his qualifying time and put down a good 5.310 - 272.47 to put Mike Austin back in the trailer. They left the starting line together, but Severance had opened a sizeable gap before the 60' mark and kept pulling away until Austin shut off at the 1000' mark.
The semi-finals in T/AD will see Cowie holding lane choice over Bateman, and Severance over Myers. Could it be yet another Cowie vs Severance final round? Stay tuned!
In Funny Car, low qualifier Mike Doushgounian earned the bye run and didn't take it easy, pounding out a very good 5.570 - 265.17 to move into the semifinals. In the first pairing of the round, Brian Hough took a wire-to-wire win over a troubled Nick Januik, putting a merciful end to Nick's "lost" weekend. Hough ran just a hair slower than his qualifying best, turning a 5.590 - 262.23 to advance over Januik's very early shutoff 10.354 - 83.15 pass.
The next pair saw Randy Parker put up a good fight against heavily favoured Chris Marshall, leaving first and holding a narrow lead until almost the 1000 ft mark, before falling short by a car length at the finish line, 5.714 - 256.91 against Marshall's winning 5.640 - 262.23 effort. That led to the final match of the first round, and Doug Gordon turned up the wick to run low e.t. of the round (and top speed of the meet) at 5.551 - 266.82 to put an early end to Terry Ruckman's day as he shook hard off the line and slowed to a 11.692 - 74.33 for the loss.
That set up semi-final matchups of Gordon (with lane choice) against Doushgounian, and an all-Oregon battle of Hough vs Marshall, with Hough having his pick of the lanes. The next update will be coming up in an hour or so. As always: stay tuned!
4:00 PM UPDATE
The semifinal rounds have been completed at Woodburn and the final round that we were predicting isn't going to happen. Leading off the semis, Joey Severance advanced to the final with a consistent 5.329 - 272.47 pass to easily cover Mitch Myers' early shutoff 6.156 - 182.59. In the other pairing, Shawn Cowie met Garrett Bateman and lost, as Bateman laid down a decent 5.412 - 278.89 for the win, while Cowie either shoook the tires or went up in smoke, or both, and coasted to a losing 9.818 - 87.38 time.
In Top Alcohol Funny Car, the first pair out, Brian Hough and Chris Marshall, had a good race until the 300' mark, where it appears that Hough was forced to pedal, and cross the finish line at a losing 5.831 - 248.96, while Marshall turned on the winlight with a much quicker 5.587 - 265.01 pass. As it turned out, that was good enough to give him lane choice in the final against Doug Gordon, who put away Mike Doushgounian by a 5.717 - 255.60 to 8.193 - 107.60 margin, as Doushgounian was out of it early and coasted to the loss.
The Funny Car Chaos event at Wichita finished qualifying with a great final session that saw a number of racers step up and tighten up all three fields. Unfortunately, our photographer (BIG Bob Snyder) hasn't been able to send along any pictures yet. With a long drive ahead of him on Sunday (1000+ miles of driving home to Phoenix, we may not see anything until late Monday.