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02-09-11-07:
For the first time in history, four hand picked Nostalgia Top
Fuel Dragsters were invited to do exhibition runs at the season
opening NHRA Winternationals. The Nitro Thunder team was among
the cars chosen. Although rain foiled Sunday's runs, on Saturday
Brett Harris did wheel the Jack Harris Racing Top Fuel Dragster
to an impressive, shut off early, 5.94 before a crowd of over
25,000 appreciative fans. It was a unique opportunity for the
awesome Nostalgia Top Fuel cars to showcase their performance
before a crowd that would not normally see them. By all accounts
they were a huge hit.
Photos
and story below.
Due to the fact that
NHRA national events are a matter of logistics and careful planning,
most of the teams are in their assigned pit area by Wednesday...
including exhibition cars. Since they were only scheduled to
make two runs over the weekend (one Saturday and one Sunday)
the Nitro Thunder camp wasn't set up until Friday when the entire
team arrived. With no scheduling demands, the laid back day was
spent going over the car and checking out new equipment.
To ensure the best performance
possible on Saturday, Friday afternoon the team fired up the
car to make sure everything was in the groove.
At 2 PM Saturday afternoon
the cars were called to the staging lanes - almost show time.
Prior to the nostalgia cars, NHRA starter Rick Steward
and his crew prepped the starting line.
With the car fired Brett
Harris moves up into the water box for his burnout.
In the left lane was
Brendan Murry in his Chevy powered "Running Wild Racing"
entry.
After his burnout Brett
is backed up by Steve Tyrrell.
Murry is back up by Karen Oie.
Rayce Muchmore brings
Harris up to the staging beams.
From the hit Harris started
to put distance between himself and Murry.
Harris never missed
a beat clocking a sterling 5.913 at 256.99. Murry had problems
at half track and shut down early with a 9.417 at 90.10.
If a picture is worth
a thousand words these explain why the Sunday schedule was thrown
into chaos. The pits at 10 AM Sunday morning.
Incredibly the rain
stopped by 11:30 and the track was race ready by 1 PM. With a
revised and much tighter schedule NHRA got the event run in record
time that did not allow for the exhibition part of the show including
the nostalgia cars. Nitro Thunder's weekend was over.
All that was left to
do was piddle around, load the car and go home.
Next Event:
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Nitro
Thunder Photo Archives
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