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.

Next up: NHRA Heritage Series’ Pepsi NightFire Nationals, Boise Raceway, August 13-16.

“Nitro Kitty” would like to thank her personal sponsors and acknowledge the support of:

SCE Gaskets
Gibson Wheels
Titan Engineering
Mysterion Screenprint
Molinari Race Products
Lucas Oil
Clay Smith Engineering
Hot Rod Nostalgia

Story by K-Bomb. Photos courtesy of Mark “Sharky” King and AA/Funny Car News

photo by Mark "Sharky" King c/o nitrofunnycarnews.com

Funny Car Fever was a weekend of firsts for both myself and McCain’s Bomb Squad: I had never posted a 5-second elapsed time in a Nitro Funny Car and MCain’s ’73 Duster had never run in that zone either….

Imagine the team’s collective surprise when we posted back-to-back 5-second clockings today! The first transpired in the opening round of eliminations, and was at the expense of Dennis La Charite and his menacing Back In Black machine. By virtue of that win, as well as our #1 Qualifier status, we earned a bye run in the second round. (Twelve cars answered the bell for a 16-car show — there was bound to be a solo run for us sometime in today’s competition.)

Even though I ran unopposed in the quarter-finals, I was determined to run quick enough to earn lane choice for out semi-final joust. To that end, we clocked another 5, this time a 5.94 at a set-me-back-in-the-seat 241 mph. Practically speaking, these numbers, while impressive, didn’t mean much as my eventual opponent, Garrett Bateman in the Plueger & Gyger Mustang,  put up a jaw-dropping 5.81 in his heat.

The back story here is that one of Sacramento Raceway’s lanes — the left — leaves a little something to be desired. Specifically, it has a gnarly bump in it. The dreaded left lane is where we ended up against Bateman. Against us in the semis, he ran another stellar, straight-as-Sissy Spacek 5.80-something. Meanwhile, the Bomb Squad smoked the tires 200 feet into the run, the race car got out of the groove, and rather than get back on the throttle and possibly ruin the race car after bouncing over the speed bump, I shut ‘er off.

Please be advised that nothing in this report is meant to negate the accomplishments of Garrett Bateman and the Plueger & Gyger Funny Car. They were beyond good this weekend.

Next weekend: McCain’s Bomb Squad makes an appearance in DragFest at Famoso Raceway, north of Bakersfield. Be there or be there.

(McCain’s Bomb Squad photo c/o nitrofunnycarnews.com)