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. Not this time and Brett's first stepping stone to the
money was a first round defeat of Dad in the 1st round of racing
on Sunday.
Sporting a new
Brett & Bruno paint job and sleeker body parts, John Rodeck's
"Paso Posse" fueler made its debut as an official Nitro
Thunder "Team Car" at the March Meet. And although
Harris did go out first round, the team was able to start accumulating
data for future events.
Photos,
story and Henry's Notes below.
Jack started his weekend out
with a fun exhibition run in "Flathead Jack" twin nitro
powered - you guessed it - flathead dragster.
After the burnout and back up,
Flathead Jack himself brings Jack into the staging beams.
Off on another 180 MPH
pass in the worlds fastest flathead dragster.
First Qualifying
Session - Friday
Under sunny skies and ideal track
conditions the first session of Top Fuel qualifying went off
at 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon. Jack Harris was paired with Adam
Sorokin.
Both drivers did long
burnouts and backed up together.
The car left good but had some
tire shake and throttle problems down track netting Harris a
6.111 at 213.32. See Henry's Notes below.
Session Notes by Henry Walther:
As with most cars we went out
with a somewhat conservative tune up. We didn't want to overpower
the track, but we also didn't want to be too far off. In hindsight
our call was pretty close, but the track had more teeth than
we thought it would. We encountered some tire shake from 20'
to 80'. Right after that Jack noticed that his foot was not fully
depressed on the throttle, so he corrected it, but then after
careful consideration (which probably took all of a millisecond),
he stepped off of the throttle early (1,035' @ 5.32 seconds).
Jack later explained the early shut off to me as a 'senior moment'.
No one had a problem with that as we all needed to see the car
go to the other end without basting Jack with BBQ sauce, which
was something we had done at the last couple of races last year.
It appeared we had found the cause for that over the winter and
cured it.
The crew doing full maintenance
on the car Friday after the session.
Qualifying Session
Two - Saturday
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 for the
second stanza Harris was paired with Adam Sorokin.
Harris and Sorokin back
up nearly together.
Harris is one of the few drivers
who doesn't have a crew member guide him back from the burnout.
When he gets close to the starting
line Henry Walther just makes sure he's in his tracks prior to
staging.
Harris just a heart beat
before the hit.
The car left good again...
and this time stayed
hooked up to an improved 5.986 at 250.48.
Session Notes by Henry Walther:
We made a small correction to
the tune up and went back out. We felt a full run would yield
a good number. Unfortunately Jack accidentally made a driver
activated tuning change that was planned for half track just
after the 60 foot clocks. That scrubbed off some performance
, but the results were still enough to land us in the #10 position.
Standard maintenance
prior to the third and last qualifying session.
As he did so many times for himself,
Gary Beck packs the chutes for Harris.
Qualifying Session
Three - Saturday
Scheduled to run at 3:30
the final qualifying session kicked off at 5:45. The air and
track were still very good.
Back in the right lane and paired
with Jim Murphy, Harris and the Paso Posse were looking to move
up in the field.
Shortly after a decent leave
the rear tires went up in smoke and Harris immediately shut it
off coasting to a 20.885 at just 48.55.
Session Notes by Henry Walther:
Again the plan was for a small
change in tune up as we knew there was more performance in the
car without getting silly. But then a strange thing happened
after the burnout had been completed. The spark plug gap in #4
cylinder closed up and the cylinder started spraying raw fuel
out on the ground in front of the right tire. At the hit the
car move two feet and blazed the tires. We could find no trace
of anything being in that cylinder so our post-mortem conclusion
was that the core electrode was loose in the plug.
Top
Fuel Qualifying after 3rd Session
1. Brad Thompson
- 5.746 @ 247.11
2. Rick White - 5.822 @ 250.69
3. Shannon Stuart - 5.841 @ 225.22
4. Pete Kaiser - 5.842 @ 257.51
5. Jim Murphy - 5.869 @ 229.70
6. Denver Schutz - 5.897 @ 249.16
7. Brett Harris - 5.911 @ 256.04
8. Troy Green - 5.927 @ 244.10 |
9. Jason
Richey - 5.964 @ 228.25
10. Jack Harris - 5.986 @ 250.48
11. Rick McGee - 5.992 @ 250.00
12. Howard Haight - 6.003 @ 230.71
13. Adam Sorokin - 6.013 @ 225.79
14. Bill Dunlap - 6.029 @ 251.46
15. Rick Rogers - 6.122 @ 211.46
16. Brendan Murry - 6.136 @ 239.55 |
DNQ
17. Mark Malde -
6.136 @ 239.55
18. John Shoemaker - 6.283
@ 207.80
19. Ron Maroney - 8.367
@ 130.05 |
Top Fuel Eliminations
- Round One
Sunday, 10:59 a.m. Weather conditions: air temperature 67 degrees,
relative humidity 38 percent, barometer 30.18 inches, track temperature
78 degrees.
This was not the way the Nitro
Thunder team wanted to start eliminations... the ladder had Jack
racing son Brett in the other team car, Nitro Thunder. This would
be the first time they would meet in competition.
At the flick of the switch Jack
got caught napping as Brett left first by a bunch and never looked
back.
By 70 feet Brett started
pulling away big time.
With Big Red on the move Jack
gave up the battle and shut off early to a 8.722 at 99.30 while
Brett stopped the clocks with a nice 5.941 at 253.02 to move
into the next round.
Round Notes by Henry Walther:
We went into the first round
with the same tune up from the previous run (and 8 good spark
plugs). By the time we ran the Density Altitude was 200' higher
then we had projected, and the alone probably accounted for the
car rattling the tires from the hit to 60', where Jack pedaled
it once to clean it up, but then threw in the towel and shut
off at 331 feet. Brett was too far gone.
Out of the race but not done
for sure. Over the course of eliminations Jack and the Paso Posse
made two test runs on a brand new M&H tire (run by Brett
in the 3rd qualifying session) that will hopefully solve all
the chunking problems encounter on previous tires.
They did nice burnout
but...
shortly after the leave they
went up in smoke and Harris coasted through.
Test #1 Notes by Henry Walther:
We went out with the same tire
set up that they used on Brett's car the day before, and they
said it pulled the engine down. We hopped the engine up a bit
in preparation for that, but on our car it just squirted out
8/10th of a second (27') and then blew the tires off. There was
no shake before they let go. The tire spin was came so quick
that the engine RPM went over 10,000, but no parts were damaged,
and not a drop of BBQ sauce was applied to Jack.
The second test following
the final round of Top Fuel.
It yielded no palpable information
as within 60 feet the leave looked a lot like the burnout. With
the jury still out these tires are going to have to get some
runs to the other end before they can be deemed "The Cure".
Test #2 Notes by Henry Walther:
For this run we took 6 grams
off of the clutch and per the request of M&H we lowered the
tire pressure three pound. This time the car went out 20' where
it started shaking the right side tire, and then at 40' the left
side tire started shaking too. Jack wisely shut the car off.
The March Meet was over.
We will continue testing the
same tires at Fontana, as they looked good. No chunking or odd
patterns after the runs.
When
all was said and done, team owner John Rodeck still had a smile
on his face. There's always another drag race - somewhere.
2007 March Meet - Brett Harris
