One of the highlites for me this weekend was getting to witness first hand another outstanding performance by the Canadian TAFC out of Winnipeg. The Friesen Motorsports, Roger Bateman driven Mustang is one of the JET Equipment and Tools sponsored alcohol cars and in my mind is not given enough credit or exposure up here. Did anyone notice that they were #4 in the World Points last year??? They are also on a tear again this year. Anyway, moving forward.

In round two, Bateman faced Jay Payne in what was a battle of the Titans. #3 in the World versus #4. Payne was pretty hot all weekend but not hot enough to handle Bateman's career best 5.55 second pass (first photo). Payne was definitely licking his wounds over that round.
I was pretty certain that Bateman was going to win, so once again I had my camera focused on the Mustang. Unfortunately they overpowered the track at the starting line, giving the easy win to Gordon I missed the shot of Doug going past as I was too dumbfounded at the turn of events. I hope this redeems me somewhat Dean! Congratulations again to the team from Manitoba, who by the way only decided to tow out a couple of days prior to the event.

Roger then holeshot Bellemeur in the semi's and went on to face Doug Gordon in the final.

I have included a shot of Gasperrelli and Gordon in the semi's. Gordon won and then went on to take out Bateman.

Perhaps the most talked about event of the race was the semi-final round pairing of Brittany and Ashley Force in their A/Fuel dragsters. The first photo shows Courtney climbing out of her dragster in order to suit up for the run. Sister Brittany is seen in the background. The two sisters hugged, suited up and this photographer ran all the way down to the 1,000 foot marker to get what should have been the money shot. However, after much anticipation and fanfare it was all for naught is Brittany red lit on the run, allowing sister Courtney to move on to the finals. So much for making my first million as a photographer.

Well, another money shot in the making as the other photographers were down at the starting line. These next two shots of the final round clearly show that Blown Alcohol opponent Chris Demke has Courtney by a half car length at the 1,000 foot marker, but hey, these cars go 1,320 feet. Shortly after these shots I heard a bang and saw Demke's car immediately slow.

Of course, the rest is history as Courtney blew past Demke for her first National event win. Of course, the crowd went wild and the media lapped it up big time. I have never seen so much excitement and press coverage in the alcohol ranks before.

The final picture is of Dad, John and Mom, Laurie with the scooter wide open down the return road to meet Courtney.

Tom Mettler takes the win in Comp

Gary Erickson wins Super Street

Kelowna's Mike Shannon gets the win. Better than the possible issues he has when he gets home to the Okanagan city that is being blasted by three different huge forest fires.

Dan Fletcher wins again

Pro Stock was outstanding again this year at Seattle. It looked like it was Alan Johnson's race to lose as he is just producing incredible power this year. During the event he set a new track record at 6.571 seconds (right after Mike Edwards had just set it). However, he faced a very potent Jason Line in the semi's and experienced hard tire shake right off the line and shut down early.

That set up Mike Edwards and Jason Line in the finals. They both had nearly identical reaction times but in the end Mike Edwards edged past Jason by two hundreths.

These photos show Edwards just squeaking past Line at the 1,000 foot marker.

Another very close race (but not as close as the Top Fuel final) in Fuel Funny Car.

I really believed that it was Tony Pedregon's day (sorry Tim) as he was almost flawless throughout the weekend, so I had my camera tracking him all the way.

If I had paid more attention, I would have shifted the camera to Wilkerson's car, but at 300 MPH, I don't always figure things out as quickly as someone a little smarter than me.

In what could only be described as one of the closest Top Fuel Finals in history, red hot Antron Brown beats Tony Schumacher by a mere 3 thousandths at the starting line and 5 thousandths during the run. Do the math and Brown crossed the stripe eactly 8 thousandths of a second before defending event champ Schmacher.

As the announcer said, Brown probably had an extra coat of paint on the car in order to squeak out this win. These photos show the cars going through the 1,000 foot traps within millimeters of each other.