Bill Dunlap,
driving the badass High Speed Motorsports "Great White",
won an exciting final in Top Fuel. Dunlap drove to a winning
5.695 at 255.58 to defeat Denver Schutz's losing 5.838 at 255.58.
To get here Dunlap
defeated Brendan Murry, Dave Hirata, and Rick White to advance
to the finals. This is the second win of the season for Dunlap
at a Hot Rod Reunion event as he also won the NHRR in Bowling
Green.
Says Dunlap,
“I was lucky enough to win the inaugural CHRR here in ’92,”
Dunlap said. “As for today, it's the crew that got me here.
I’m just the lucky guy who gets to push the pedals. The
crew that we put together for this race is amazing."
In Funny Car,
it was Ryan Hodgson who won the event from the No. 1 qualifying
spot. In a very close final he defeated Jason Rupert with a 5.722
seconds at 255.63 mph to a 5.817 at 249.21. Hodgson also had
the low E.T. and top speed of the meet.
Steven Densham
(above) and Tony Bartone (below) clinched 2015 NHRA Hot Rod Heritage
Series championships in Nostalgia Funny Car and Top Fuel, respectively.
It was Densham's first and Bartone's second straight.
Bakersfield,
CA - 10/26/15: The
24th edition of the California Hot Rod Reunion is in the books
and once again it lived up to its rock star billing. The weekend
featured Chamber of Commerce weather and a race track second
to none. There was no doubt that Auto Club Famoso Raceway operators
Blake and John Bowser had their facility ready for what was the
largest CHRR ever.
Add to that the
hard working folks from the Wally Parks Motorsports Museum and
the crew at Famoso insured those in attendance enjoyed 3 full
days of great racing, tons of cacklecars (54 push starts) and
the reason the reunion started in the first place, tons of friends
getting together while we still can.
For the fourth
year in a row a silent auction to benefit the Wally Parks NHRA
Motorsports Museum was held by the Nitro Alumni. 170 unique and
rare items went on the block and the end result was over $25,000
to benefit a great cause.
The 2015 NHRA
Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series champs were also crowned. In Top
Fuel Tony Bartone won his second Series championship in a row.
Steve Densham held on to take the Funny Car title.
Other winners
were: A FUEL: Drew Austin; AA/FUEL ALTERED Jeremy Sullivan; NOSTALGIA
PRO MOD Andrew Berry; JUNIOR FUEL Scott Parks; 7.0 PRO Dewayne
Sanders; AA/SUPERCHARGED Howard Anderson; A/GAS Brendan Frye;
A/FX Steve Whitemore.
For the full
event story visit: 2015 CHRR at: NHRA Museum News
Since nobody
reads the lead in anyway, I'll go right into Top Fuel.
*There are A LOT of photos
in this coverage because: (1) Several photographers contributed
and I want them all represented. (2) The driver's and teams really
deserve the recognition they don't get anywhere else.
Top
Fuel Qualifying Session One
To everybody's
approval, a third nitro session was added to this year,
the
first two went off on Friday.
The first pair
to hit the perfectly prepped track was Rick McGee in the Tedford
& McGee "Overtime Special", and Denver Schutz in
the "Raisin Express 3".
The team acknowledged
Cancer Awareness Month with pink ribbons on their shirts and
a pink nose on the car. Darrell Tedford had a bout with cancer
earlier this year and after treatment, so far, so good.
McGee stopped
the clocks with a 5.99 at 190.93 while Schutz carded a 6.08 at
211.39.
Next
up were Rick Williamson and Rick White.
White got there
first with a 5.77 at 238.11 while Williamson was flying blind
to a 6.11 at 219.22 covered in oil after the "puke tube"
came off the right valve cover.
Needless
to say, this took a while to clean up.
Pair three featured
Ron August in Mike Fuller's "Forever Young" and Dave
Hirata in Dale Suhr's "Orange Crate".
You can see Dave's
head looking down in a WTF moment. Hit the throttle, car didn't
move an inch. Seems the reverser broke rendering the driveline
moot.
August
had no problems and motored on down the track.
August
carded a decent 5.84 at 261.09
Next out was
Jim Murphy in his WW2 Racing entry and Adam Sorokin driving the
Champion Speed Shop fueler.
This
year Murphy brought the legendary Roland Leong as Crew Chief.
Not that
it mattered but Sorokin left first by a huge margin.
Admittedly the
tune-up was "to hopped up" and at the 60ft block the
car went into major tire smoke.
Sorokin stopped
the clocks at a sub par 6.08 at just 202.88 throwing out two
rods in the process causing a fire that burned longer than most.
Next to last
pair featured Bill Dunlap in the High Speed Motorsports entry
and Brendan Murry in his Running Wild Racing later model hemi
car.
Murry
had problems early while Dunlap motored on down the track.
Dunlap carded
a tune-up time of 5.69 at 241.87 while Murry coasted through
with a 7.51 at 110.39.
Final
pair was Tony Bartone in the Bartone Bros. car and Terry Cox
in the Cheetah IV.
Bartone got there
first with a 5.72 at 225.44 with Cox close behind with a 5.89
at 250.51.
The final
car to take the track was Dusty Green in the Nitro Hemi entry.
Green
lit the tires at the 60' mark and clicked it.
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