April 25, 2009
After the clutch dust settled from this morning’s final qualifying at Sacramento Raceway’s Funny Car Fever, the leader board showed McCain’s Bomb Squad in the top position. But it was close: After posting a 6.003 elapsed time coupled with a top-end speed of 235 mph, we claimed the #1 spot over 2nd-best Kris Krabill in Gary Turner’s Pedaler by a whisker-thin 5/1000ths of second! (Last nite, Krabill recorded a 6.008, backed with a stellar top end charge of 242 mph.)
After Jack Beckman’s unfortunate crash last night, there are 14 entries left in the 16-car Nitro Funny Car class, which means that once eliminations begin this afternoon both myself and Krabill will get uncontested “bye” runs into the 2nd round.
Stay tuned for more news from Cowtown, cyber-cats and kittens.
3 Comments | 
Mendy Fry | Tagged: drag racing, funny car, funny car fever, Gary Turner, Jack Beckman, Kris Krabill, mccain's bomb squad, Mendy Fry, nitro funny car, nitro kitty | 
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Posted by kerobomb
April 25, 2009
Here’s the first news from Funny Car Fever in Sacramento: Last night on a cold, slippery and green track, we were able to claim the provisional #2 position on the 16-car Nitro Funny Car ladder. By virtue of posting a quarter-mile elapsed time of 6.63 seconds, we ended up slated behind Kris Krabill, who claimed the #1 spot with a 6-flat.
This was our first pass with Smoky Alleman tuning McCain’s Bomb Squad. His tune-up is based on tweaks to ideas that tuner/consultant Roland Leong came up with at the March Meet and it seems to be paying off, especially considering that I shut off the engine at 1000 feet into the run (as corroborated by our 177-mph top end speed, in contrast to Krabill’s stout 242-mph clocking.)
Qualifying was marred by a scary crash, involving “Fast Jack” Beckman, last week’s Funny Car winner at NHRA’s Atlanta drag race, and a driver who came to Sacrament to moonlight in a vintage-style Funny Car. Unfortunately, Jack bounced off athe guardwall and turned upside down in Lee Paul Jenning’s American Revolution Camaro.
I was strapped in McCain’s Bomb Squad Duster, waiting our turn to run when the crash happened. I didn’t see it; I could only hear it. Net, net: Beckman is okay; the race car not so much.
More qualifying today. Eliminations later this afternoon. Stay tuned.
3 Comments | Mendy Fry | Tagged: drag racing, funny car, funny car fever, Jack Beckman, mccain's bomb squad, Mendy Fry, nitro funny car, Roland Leong | Permalink
Posted by kerobomb
