If one is a Nitro Funny Car racer, this weekend’s March Meet is the tournament where one makes a statement — and a proclamation of legend.
Famoso Raceway’s 52nd March Meet has all the markings of being an epochal event, if not just historic. For the first time in drag racing since the AHRA/PRO National Challenge at Tulsa International Raceway in August, 1973, nearly two score of honest-to-goodness blown-on-nitro AA/Funny Cars will attempt to qualify for a spot in a 32-car eliminator.
For Funny Car driver “Nitro Kitty” Mendy Fry, however, merely filing an entry for the race was daunting enough. During her end-of-year racing hiatus, Frau Fry suddenly parted ways with her last team. Similarly, Donnie Couch, her on-again/off-again partner-in-grime (and West Coast Funny Car Factory founder) was himself between projects, kicking the proverbial can against the shop doors, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
None did. Until racecar owner Gary Messenger offered up his dormant (and for sale) Future Flash ’73 Charger, a machine that both Couch and Fry competed with in 2008. A deal was struck: Install a short block, acquire a bunch of odds’n’ends and nitro-strength hardware, buy a drum of fuel and cases of oil, borrow a trailer and get thee to Bakersfield.
Thus Donnie and Mendy got proactive over the winter, calling in a myriad of favors for donated expendables for their borrowed flopper, now rechristened the West Coast Funny Car Factory/Nitro Kitty Charger. Because of these efforts, this weekend Messenger’s machine will enter the copious cavalcade of fuel coupes jousting for entry in what has the potential to be the mother of all Funny Car races, with Couch turning the wrenches and Fry swapping pedals.
NITRO KITTY RACING MARCH MEET NOTES:
Among those ponying up parts, pieces and petroleum products for this bi-partisan, joint effort of Nitro Kitty Racing, Donnie Couch’s West Coast Funny Car Factory and Gary Messenger Ltd.: Hyevon Choppers, Lucas Oil, SCE Gaskets, Molinari, M/T Tires, Justice Bros., Burning Motorhome Promotions and MCC Construction.
Advisory March Meet Nitro Funny Car Schedule: 1st round of Qualifying: Friday, March 5th, 2 PM. 2nd round of qualifying, Saturday, March 6th, Noon. 1st Round Eliminations: Saturday, 3 pm. Further eliminations, Sunday, March 7th, 11 AM.
To watch the live podcast, point your browser to http://www.speedsceneracing.com at 6 pm PST. Moreover, call in 1-800-809-0802, get on the air and join in the bench racing! Among tonight’s topics up for discussion: Mendy’s 2009 season in review (including what it is like to race Nitro Funny Cars in the NHRA Heritage Series with luminaries like Roland Leong and Donnie Couch), as well as a glimpse into her racing plans for 2010, including discussions with NHRA and IHRA Top Fuel teams.
Getting fitted for the Nitro Kitty Charger (nee Future Flash)
Pomona, CA, 11-11-2009 – This weekend at the Pomona Fairplex, the past, present and future (flash) will converge for Nitro Funny Car driver Mendy Fry. How so? On Saturday and Sunday at the National Hot Rod Association’s season-ending Auto Club Finals, Fry will once again shoe Gary Messenger’s resplendent-yet-potent, gorgeous black-and-gold 1973 Dodge AA/Funny Car, a machine rich in drag strip history, whose lineage is traced to renowned and notorious drag racers such as Gene Snow, Brent Fanning and Roland Leong. Ironically, the entry also has ties to Fry herself, as this is the same racer that she earned her Nitro Funny Car license in, and then campaigned with tuner Donnie Couch to a runner-up finish at the 2008 Las Vegas Speed Spectacular.
At that event the machine was known as the “Future Flash,” and was Fry and Couch’s swan song appearance with the car, but this weekend this same entry will be re-christened the “Nitro Kitty Charger,” in reference to both Fry’s return and her popular racing brand. In preparation for its imminent reappearance, the race car was recently updated and retrofitted for Fry at Donnie’s fabled West Coast Funny Car Factory, and will be tuned by Couch. Thus this weekend reunites Messenger, Couch and Fry, but because the team is still sorting out financing and partnerships for its participation in the 2010 NHRA Heritage Series, as of now the car is provisionally — and cheekily — titled the “Messenger, Fry, Couch & YourNameHere’s ‘Nitro Kitty Charger.’”
The unlettered Nitro Kitty Charger body
The “Nitro Kitty Charger’s” quarter-mile exhibitions at Pomona this weekend is part of an effort coordinated by NHRA Heritage Series majordomo Steve Gibbs, and is designed to draw attention to that program’s events, which include remarkably popular vintage-themed drag races from Bakersfield to Boise. To that end, among those joining Fry for this weekend’s fiery and ferocious festivities will be the AA/Funny Cars of Josh Crawford, the “Pisano & Matusbara” Nitro Vega and the “Lil’ Nate” Barracuda owned by Howard Bugg, as well as a pair of AA/Fuel dragsters.
Besides the yeoman work of Couch and his West Coast Funny Car Factory workers to put this effort together in time for its assault on Pomona, the “Nitro Kitty Charger” would not be making laps without the support of Fry’s associate sponsors, Justice Brothers, Lucas Oil, Hyevon Choppers, Jeg’s High Performance, Mickey Thompson Tires and SCE Gaskets. As an exclamation of her appreciation, as the final touches were applied to the Funny Car, Mendy exulted: “I’m so happy to be back in my pretty car.” -30-
West Coast Funny Car Factory maven Donnie Couch preps the Nitro Kitty Charger's mill.
18TH CALIFORNIA HOT ROD REUNION, Bakersfield, CA, October 18th – With twenty-eight machines lighting it off and jostling for the eight-quickest positions during Saturday’s AA/Funny Car Eliminator qualifying round, one has to expect some broken hearts — and broken parts.
For “Nitro Kitty” Mendy Fry and her mount, McCain’s Bomb Squad, that meant a broken rear end — and one that was impractical to mend. At the shift-point during the first of what should have been two qualifying runs, a puff of smoke came out of the ‘73 Duster’s headers, a signal that the pinion gear lost more teeth than two cowboys in a bar fight, and the damage spread throughout the drivetrain, including destroying the axle and snapping a steel input shaft like a pretzel. With power to the slicks dis-engaged, Fry coasted to a quarter-mile elapsed time of 7.13 at 131 mph, netting a provisional 19th position, insufficient to qualify for Sunday’s race.
Which was academic, because after the damage was assessed, in hopes of making Sunday’s qualifying round, a frantic search for a replacement rear axle was met with sympathetic responses from members of the Nitro Funny Car community, most specifically by the teams of Claude LaVoie and Todd Lesenko, but to no avail. And after McCain’s Bomb Squad spent the night disassembling the drivetrain in hopes of putting it back together in time for more qualifying, the team’s season came to end for want of a spare axle. Which begs the question: How do you mend a broken heart? Or even a broken rear end? -30-
Sneak Preview! Click here for a sneak peak of the SCE Gaskets “Keeping It Sealed” commercial starring AA/Funny Car driver Mendy Fry. Officially, the spot will premiere this weekend on Fox Sports Net’s motorsports show, Inside Drag Racing.
Check it out! And remember; SCE Gaskets are keeping it sealed!
(The Nitro Kitty Crew would like to thank SCE Gaskets, the Jackson Bros. and Dan Lea for their help organizing and compiling the race footage.)
While serving as the event’s Grand Marshall, AA/Funny Car pilot Mendy “Nitro Kitty” Fry will unveil the Lucas Oil Special at this weekend’s “Cruzin for Life” a popular car show in Santa Maria that doubles as a cancer-care fundraiser. The ‘73 Plymouth Duster Nitro Funny Car will also participate in a burnout contest on Sunday.
As noted in The Lompoc Record, last year this same event “raised $105,000, with the Cancer Care Center receiving $70,000 and the other $35,000 going to the American Cancer Society.”
During the last session of qualifying for the Pepsi Nightfire Nationals in Boise, we were able to post quarter-mile elapsed time of 5.93 second with a top-end speed of 236 mph.
But then there is this: (see below) You think we should back it down tonight for the first round of Nitro Funny Car Eliminations?
June 27, Sacramento Raceway — In sizzling heat and on a track surface she described as “slicker than snot,” “Nitro Kitty” Mendy Fry kept the throttle down and skated and skedaddled to a semi-final finish at Sacramento Raceway’s 33rd “Nitro Nite of Fire.”
In torrid, debilitating triple digit temperatures, Fry qualified her team’s nitro-powered Funny Car into the 5th position of the race ladder with a 1/4 mile elapsed time of 6.14 seconds, a respectable clocking coupled with a finish-line speed of 233 mph. In the first round of Funny Car Eliminator, her ‘73 Plymouth Duster upended Mark Sanders’ Mr. Explosive Nova, as Sanders succumbed to traction woes, enabling Fry to zip to the finish line uncontested, where she posted a victorious time of 6.24 seconds at 234 mph.
This set up a semi-final duel between Fry and the ferocious entry of Plueger & Gyger, a Mustang-bodied racer piloted by Fry’s high school alumnus (and Nitro Funny Car rookie), Barrett Gateman. When the lights flashed green, it could be said that a tutorial was in session, as Fry used her reflexes and grabbed four hundredths of a second advantage off of the starting line; 60 feet into the run, however, class went into recess, as Bateman guided the Plueger-powered Pony right down the groove and drove around the Duster. Bateman claimed the round win with an outstanding 5.94 to Fry’s 6.20. Bateman later claimed the event title by disposing of Leah Pruett-LeDuc.
Come catch us pound the pavement before you hunker down next weekend to watch “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” As motorsports writer Jeff Wolf says in his colum today: “… (T)here’s enough action on television and at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to feed your fix until the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 run May 24.” -30-
Drag Fest final-round burnout. Fierce! (photo by Cole Coonce)
After qualifying #2 at DragFest on Saturday, my team and I made our way through Funny Car Eliminator on Sunday and faced off against the potent Ed Dougan and the Fighting Irish machine in the final round. Neither myself nor the guys had ever claimed an event win in a Nitro Funny Car — although I came within a whisker one year ago at the NHRA Heritage Series race in Las Vegas while driving the Future Flash Charger, when, unfortunately, an errant connecting rod punched a hole in the block, oil got under the right slick and… well, we don’t need to revisit the aftermath of all that, do we?
My second appearance in a Nitro Funny Car final round was every bit as exciting as my first, and thankfully, not nearly as catastrophic.
I did my burnout first. Unbeknownst to me our competition was in trouble, struggling to even make it into the water box. After an anxious minute and a half of their team frantically trying to disengage the blower starter while I sat waiting with my motor cackling, Irish-pilot Ed Dougan does a brief burnout, and pre-stages. I follow suit, we both stage, the light goes green and I am off the line first. Dougan is hot on my tail and keeps his foot planted on the gas, driving around me by half-track and holding a four-foot lead. At the top end, the Fighting Irish clock a victorious 6.04 to trump our 6.12.
"Fighting Irish" in the Drag Fest Final Round (photo by Cole Coonce)
It was a tremendous drag race; one that was decided at the finish line by hundredths of second. But no matter how exciting, allow me to say that this bridesmaid business blows! Bummer!
As a final note from DragFest, we put in five strong passes in the car over the weekend. Further to that, win, lose or draw, going rounds is great experience for all involved, and enables the entire team to gain confidence, solidify and work as a unit. Moreover, it provided ample opportunity to drive down the return road and toss out baseball caps emblazoned with one of associate sponsor’s logos! (“Jeg’s,” natch…)
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