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.
