Event report
by Bob Brown:
The last of the three Saturday Night Nitro events held
at Famoso over the Summer took place on Friday and Saturday,
Sept. 7-8, 2012. Gates opened Friday to fuel cars after lunch,
with other classes coming through the gates after 5PM.
On Friday afternoon,
Dan Horan Sr.'s dragster was the sole TF car on the premises,
with a handful of Nitro FC's on hand sprinkled throughout the
pits. Friday evening was test and tune time, with several fuel
cars doing licensing passes for new prospective drivers and others
looking for a baseline for Saturday night's competition. Temps
were in the high 90's, cooling after sundown to make for a balmy
evening of racing. Several FC's were in the low 6's, but Dan
Horan Jr. laid down the law with a nice 5.85 right off the trailer.
He also did a shakedown squirt in Dan Sr.'s digger that night.
Saturday brought
out Bob Richardson's Circuit Breaker, along with Brendan Murry's
car in the T/F group. Nitro FC's came in droves, and by Saturday
evening, there were over 20 competing for the Winner's Circle.
The Beal Big Show FC did some license passes too, throwing out
some nice flames at dusk.
The West Coast
Hot Rod Association ran their competition on both days concurrently
with the Nitro cars. A variety of classes began at 1PM Saturday
and seldom let up til the wee hours of Sunday morning. The nitro
cars were slated to compete at 8 and 10 PM on Saturday, a change
from the previous month where they also ran at midnight. It was
thought that this would make it easier for more spectators (read
families) to witness the finals without having to stay out too
late. Special appearances were made by a pair of jet cars and
a pair of nitro burning Harleys. Huevos grandes all around!
Frank McBee had
triple duty this weekend, serving as a crew member on Brendan
Murry's Running Wild T/F digger while also doing two license
passes in the same car on Friday. Then on Saturday, Frank assumed
driving duties in the Archibald A/F blown alky BBC car.
A planned 4 car A/F match race turned into a 3-way event between
Jerry Kumre, Kin Bates and McBee in the Archibald machine. The
final was Bates vs. McBee, with Doc Bates taking the win in a
close race.
Brendan Murry
made one pass on Saturday evening as they continued to dial in
the new hemi. He carded a 6.40 at 177 on that run. John Rasmussen
made two solo runs in the Circuit Breaker, the first being a
6.06 at 220. His second run appeared to be equally strong if
not moreso, but no time came up on the board… not sure why
that was.
Funny Car competition
did an "all run" first round, with the eight best winning
ET's running in the second round. Best winning ET of those four
pairs took the Wally. In the second round, the third pairing
saw Dan Horan Jr. face Alex Milodinovich in the Hot-4-Teacher
car. After the burnout, Alex couldn't engage the reverser or
the forward gears. Track staff tried to assist by a hand push,
but time was running with heat building, so Alex sat in the car
downtrack while Horan made a laser-straight pass by him, netting
a 5.75 at 253mph as everyone breathed a sigh of relief! This
was low ET for the event, giving Dan Jr. the Wally. James Day
in the Pedaler (last month's champ) had second best ET at 5.86.
Here are the final four FC pairings with their results, winners
listed first:
LaCharite 5.909
234.9
VanGundy 6.033 221.02
Day 5.864 246.03
Rupert 5.843 246.3
Horan 5.752 253.95
(Event Winner - best ET)
Milodinovich Broke
Here's some photos
not in chronological order.
