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Bakersfield, CA - March 09-11, 2007: The 49th edition of the March Meet was, by all accounts, one of the best ever! John and Blake Bowser - with a lot of help from their staff - put on a drag race for the ages. From the full pits on Thursday to the Winners Circle shots on Sunday this was an event blessed with Chamber of Commerce weather, an accommodating facility, incredible racing surface, friendly staff, full bore fans and upbeat attitudes throughout.

The 35,000+ fans that packed the facility over the three-day event were treated to over 500 race cars including 20 of the countries best Top Fuel dragsters. As always, the Nitro Thunder team traveled from Utah with one thought in mind - winning. Although Jack (Harris) has won the prestigious March Meet twice, the Big One had eluded Brett. After qualifying 7th with a 5.911 at 256.04, Harris picked up the pace and marched through 4 rounds of eliminations to cap the first father/son March Meet winner ever.

 

 

As always, the weekend started out rather low keyed with the crew preparing for three qualifying sessions (one Friday and two Saturday).

 

Once again the big issue was tires. Jack Harris was seen mounting a new set Friday afternoon and would repeat this drill, along with every other team, all weekend.

 

Under sunny skies the first session got under way at 2:30 PM. Brett was paired with a hometown favorite, Rick McGee.

Returning to 3 qualifying sessions (2006 races only had 2) took a lot of pressure off the teams to hit one out of the box on Friday. Like others, Harris used the first session to get a baseline tune-up for the weekend.

Harris clicked it at the first light and ran a nice first run of 5.943 at 245.63.

After doing full maintenance on the car Friday evening, Saturday morning was spent prepping for the last two sessions.

 

Qualifying Session Two

Running 2 hours behind schedule, 1:41 p.m. Weather conditions: air temperature 68 degrees, relative humidity 33 percent, barometer 30.14 inches, track temperature 84 degrees... nearly perfect.

Moving to the left lane, Big Red sounded great on the burnout. In the other lane was Adam Sorokin.

Harris and Sorokin back up nearly together.

Co-Crew Chief Rayce Muchmore makes final adjustments to the engine.

At the hit the car lifts the left front wheel (a good thing) and rips of a nice 1.075 sec. 60 foot time.

After running 3.996/201.47mph at half track Harris improved his first run with a 5.911 at 256.04.

Following the session the crew replaced the pistons and did normal maintenance to the engine and clutch.

Qualifying Session Three

Scheduled to run at 3:30 the final qualifying session kicked off at 5:45. The air and track were still very good.

To set this up, M&H was on hand to oversee the tire problems and to do some testing on a brand new design that hopefully would eliminate the "chunking" problem encountered on previous tires. As has been the case in the past, Harris was asked to do the test and chose to do so on on this run. He was basically taking one for the cause as whatever the time netted on this pass would not count for qualifying. Harris would be # 7 regardless.

 

Being the final car in the session and doing a tire test, Harris had the track all to himself and was allowed to run in the left lane.

 

 

 

 

Harris left hard and looked like he would cut a number until the car spun the tires down track.

Brett shut off early to a 6.002 at 242.19.

The race car got put on hold for a while Saturday evening while the crew celebrated three birthdays. Harry Dubach, Rayce Muchmore and little Kaden Harris all put another notch on the bed board of life over the weekend.

Page Two: March Meet Elimination Rounds