Boise,
Idaho - April 12 & 13. Coming into the 2003 Ignitor Open,
Jack "The Sheriff" Harris and his Utah Posse had won
3 of the last 4 major events at Firebird Raceway. After qualifying
# 1 and setting both ends of the track record (5.97 @ 244) on
Saturday, it looked like another notch in his pistol was in the
cards. After resetting the records (5.93 at 248.41) in route
to a first round win on Sunday, it looked like it would be a
take no prisoners weekend. However ... that pesky varmint, Jim
Murphy laid another ambush. But first....
On his first qualifying pass
on Saturday, Harris shattered the track record running an incredible
5.97 at 244 mph. To show how big this was, the previous track
records were a 6.06 by Rance McDaniel and Roger Letchenberg's
228 was the speed mark. As he made history, the nice 6.03 by
Bill Dunlap in the other lane went nearly unnoticed.
With only seven cars in the show
on Sunday, as low qualifier, Harris was awarded a first round
single. He again chose the left lane and instead of making an
easy run for the automatic win, The Sheriff legged it through
the lights with an unbelievable 5.93 at 248.41, surpassing his
qualifying performance and topping both ends of the track record
for a second time in as many days.
The Posse
whoops it up as the electronic scoreboard tells the story.
The semi-finals should have been
the marquee race of the event but turned out to be a stunning
victory for Jim Murphy and another disappointing loss for Nitro
Thunder. At the green, Harris immediately had problems (below)
and to add insult to injury, the black and yellow OSH fueler
marched to another new track ET record (5.862) ... leaving Harris
with only the MPH side of the record.
Everyone knew
that both cars were loaded for bear and were capable of running
into the 5.80s. What could (and should) have been a side-by-side
5.80 race literally went up in smoke for Harris. Due to a failure
in the fuel system, massive amounts of raw nitro got under the
rear tires and caused them to hopelessly spin from the hit of
the throttle. Jack had to watch hopelessly as Murphy (below)
took the win and half his track record. You can bet that over
the course of the 2003 season these two will lock horns again,
and every time it will be a coin toss.
Speaking of Jim Murphy,
mortal advisories on the track,
most racers are the best of friends the rest of the time. Here
Jack Harris and Billy Robins turn over the "Jim Herbert
Memorial" trophy to Jim. The trophy is awarded to the winner
of Goodguys March Meet and kept by that winner for the following
year. Harris had possession of this prize for the two previous
years but had to turn it over to Murphy as the winner of the
2003 event.
Murphy, Jack Harris,
Kaden Harris and Brett Harris.
Routine
maintenance.
On their trip to Idaho, the Nitro
Thunder car was put on display at a Dodge dealership. As most
know, Dodge is really pushing their hemi engine now and had these
stickers printed to go with the ad campaign. Harris got his hands
on a bunch of them and they were all over the pits. One even
ended up on Lee Jennings golf cart - and they run a Chevy in
their race car.
The Nitro Thunder pit
is always a fan favorite... especially with the kids.
Kaden Harris had to find
out for himself what the "bottom end" looks like.
Photo proof it was not
a summer weekend in Boise.
Nitro
Thunder Photo Archives |
