Boise, Idaho 08-10-14, 2007: For the 36th year in a row the New family's Night Fire Nationals made Boise the place for drag racers and fans to be. For the thousands of fans in attendance, it was without doubt the single most impressive event in the track's forty year history. Nice weather (for this time of year) greeted a record field of racers and jam-packed grandstands to four incredible days of racing.

And once again this long established event proved why it should be on every ones racing calendar. Hundreds of race cars vied for some of the largest purses offered to sportsman and pro classes anywhere. The huge event was capped by a weekend of nitro featuring a full 16 car field of Top Fuel dragsters along with Fuel Alterds and Funny Cars. In Top Fuel, a number of cars dipped into the 5’s in both qualifying and eliminations, but several were also challenged with tire smoke for the first time during the weekend on Sunday when the Friday and Saturday 80s turned to high 90s and track temps reached 140 degrees. It proved to be nothing shy of wild to sit back and watch from a fan perspective.

On Thursday Jack Harris Racing rolled into the sun drenched pits of Firebird Raceway with three contenders - the Nitro Thunder and Paso Posse Top Fuel dragsters and the Nitro Thunder Ford Victoria funny car. With much experience at the Boise facility, the Harris cars are always on the short list of favorites and this was no exception.

On the dragster side, both Brett and Jack qualified in the top half of the field but went out early with Nitro Thunder losing on a round one hole shot and the Paso Posse being shut off on the starting line with oil pressure issues in round two. But the funny car came out on top of an abbreviated but strong field to beat the Pisano & Matsubara Vega in the final. It was the first Nostalgia Funny Car championship for Harris.

 

More of the story and photos below.

 

The first qualifying session was not scheduled until Friday evening so most of the day was pretty laid back. The funny car was pitted with the Nitro Thunder dragster and took up a sizable hunk of pit side real estate.

 

The unique Nitro Thunder '55 For Victoria funny car driven by Jack Harris.

 

After extensive track clean up and prep the first session went off at 7:00 PM. Here, with the sun setting behind the stands, Harris heats the tires.

 

Paired with Rick Rogers, Harris left good but the car got loose down track. In fact, most of the cars had traction problems in the first session with only one driver carding a sub six second time.

 

 

Harris shut off early to a 6.47 at 162.86.

 

Paired with Jeff Utterback in the Pisano & Matsubara car, Harris got loose again and shut off early.

 

John Rodeck and the Paso Posse crew warming up the engine prior to the second qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.

Ex-Top Fuel driver and champion Gary Beck and car owner John Rodeck.

Tucked away in the back of the Paso Posse pit was Gary Beck's beautiful street roadster powered by an blown Rodeck 426 hemi. Beck is starting to put some street miles on the rod that took over two years to build.

Session two went off at 3:30 and it was HOT. 88 degrees with at track temp of 130. Not ideal conditions but it would be the closest to what race conditions would be on Sunday. Having to sit in the car with a 7 layer firesuit on called for umbrellas at the very least.

The car left hard and improved greatly to a 6.03 at 241.74 with left Harris # 4 after two sessions.

Session three on Saturday evening found the air a bit cooler and track tighter. Everyone expected some big numbers and that's what they got. The 5 yr old track ET record was broken twice and 10 of the 16 got their best qualifying times.

At the other end it was Jack with a 5.93 at 251 (Top Speed of the Meet to this point). Brett improved with a 6.01 at 247.38.

 

 

First round of eliminations went off at 3:00 Sunday afternoon. By virtue of qualifying positions Jack Harris and Mark Malde paired up.

 

 

 

 

 

Malde was out first and Jack had to play catch-up.

 

 

By the 60' mark Harris was starting to haze the tires which would normally spell defeat early. However, being the racer he is Jack didn't give up. He grabbed the brake and pedaled the car and it recovered enough to catch Malde, who was also smoking the tires, and card a 6.769 at 190.83 for the win. As they say, it wasn't pretty but but a win is a win.

 

 

For round two Harris was paired with eventual event winner, Howard Haight who had beat Brett in round one.

 

 

During the backup Harris noticed the oil pressure was dropping... not a good thing.

 

 

With no oil pressure it was an easy decision to abort the run, handing Haight the single. It was later found that the oil pump shaft had broken. Tough way to lose a race.

 

A dejected Harris exited the cockpit, left now to focus on the funny car.

 

 

Due to the odd numbered short field, the first round of Funny Car was run after round two of Top Fuel. By virtue of being low qualifier, Harris drew the single.

We have no photos of the Final run but Harris smoky 6.910 at 189.35 beat Jeff Utterback's engine killing 9.811 at 88.98.