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Top Fuel Elimination's

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Final elimination's wrap up.

.....Almost a story book ending for the Royal Canadian Top Fuel team! Ron Hodgeson did what any smart business person would do who wanted to put forth the best possible team for a home town race. He brought in a top caliber operation including Canadian Drag racing driving legend Terry Capp, tuner By Rob Flynn, and the combination leased from Bob Vandergriff. Unfortunately, the ending was a red light short of being perfect when Terry got a little anxious. As soon as Clay lit his bottom bulb, Terry hit the loud pedal and left before the tree was activated. Clay would have been very tough to beat in the final though, as his 4.609 along with the Canadian record 5.575 he ran in the semi finals showed the Werner team was not taking anyone for granted. Clay even had an oh so close to red lighting .002 rt in the first round against Bruce Litton. The Lehman/Millican juggernaut seems to be almost fiction like in their performance level. When a car or team in the other lane shows a level of performance close to theirs, Mike Kloeber and Lance Larson turn up the wick another notch, and spit out another competitor. What would have happened if Terry had of waited for green? Who knows, but "Royal Canadian team" would have had to make a lap in the low 4.60 range, even with Terry's great rts in the first two rounds. The Canadian team sent the crowd to the feet when he ran 4.75 and a track record 319.37 (Bud Park track record). He was actually on the trottle in that run for an amazing 6 seconds according to one crew member. He did barely come to a stop at the second and final shutdown.

TF Notes: Todd Paton made the one great qualifying shot on Friday, but not running the final session on Sunday morning may have cost the team, as they lost traction and slowed to a 5.90 in his first round race against Capp. Bruce Litton made the field by the skin of his teeth. He pedaled his Top Fueler at least four times in the Sunday morning final session to a 6.011 ET. Bruce then had to wait for Doc Sipple and Rick Cooper to run and see if his weak elapsed time would hold. Both failed to top Litton's 6.01 and Bruce let out a huge sigh of relief. Ed Verenka's lone qualifying effort in the only A/Fuel car on the property did not give the result they were looking for. Ed had run 5.40's and 5.50s in his last two events attended in NHRA trim, but he was rumored to have tried a more IHRA friendly combination for this race and it did not give him the results he was hoping for. Hindsight is probably 20/20 in this case. Bobby Lagana failed to qualify at his second consecutive Rocky Mountain race. This year he was in his own car (last year it was Brent Fanning's ride). His seven second ET almost matched last year's ET. John 'Doc' Sipple made the field last year, but did not get in. In this race he smoked the tires just past the 300 foot mark on both laps. Cullinan was going for the moon, literally in his last attempt to move in front of Millican but the car lifted the front wheels close to 6 feet off the pavement and had to abort. The Alberta Clipper made only one attempt to qualify for the field, and it was not a good one, as the car, driven by David Fedorowich, and owned by Kevin Boyer lit up like a roman candle as soon as he hit the loud pedal. It sounded very flat and was revving quite high after the burnout and I had a feeling it would not be a good run. Doug Foley and Tim Lewis probably got TF long distance award (Lagana is a close second), as that first year team hopes to finish in the top five in their rookie season. Both the team and I though they would run a low five or possibly high four, but the transission to a high eleavation track was a little more difficult the get a handle on than the rookie crew was prepared for.

Final Qualifying:

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Top Fuel Friday qualifying

Pro Mod Qualifying

Winner:

Final Elimination's:

Team Canada in the Drag Racing world has few true hopefuls that are a threat to win in the professional arena from a drivers standpoint at national events. Al Billes and Rob Atchison are two players in the East, and in the last year or so Rick Distefano and Glen Kerunsky in the West. Glen won earlier this season at San Antonio, but has not had the performance level since the new 20% OD rule came into place. In fact the only cars that have run well in the IHRA with the rule changes are Von Smith, Mike Janis, Al Billes and to a lesser extent Quain Stott and Rick Distefano. Rick was so intent on finding the lost HP from the rule change that he skipped his favorite race of the year, at Mission Raceway, to test extensively on the dyno with tuner Les Davenport. It paid off, with him totally dominating qualifying, with a 6.26 best and then running as quick as 6.24 in elimination's. Someone forgot to tell Harold Martin about the script though, as he too improved his performance from the 6.33 he ran in qualifying, and progressively got better in race mode, running an unreal 6.22 in round two. That lap would have converted to a 6.159 (if given the half factor allotted to blown and turbocharged cars in the NHRA). Martin and Distefano were both destined to make the final and one of them was going to be a first time winner at an IHRA national event. Obviously the crowd was cheering for home province boy Distefano, but it was not to be, when Rick shredded the belt 200 feet off the starting line. He has a .08 starting line advantage which would have been tough for Martin to overcome, but the time it took for Martin to stage, which was very close to the max. 7 seconds, probably ended up to be to much for Ricky's engine as the time on the clutch before the start possibly played a part in the belt blowing apart. One thing is for sure is he will explore the options of running the Goodyear belt system run on Clay Millican's Top Fuel car. That team came over and talked to Rick after the race and said they have not had a belt failure in close to two years.

Pro Mod Pit Notes: Positions two through seven were held down by nitrous rides, something the blown teams will be sure to make the IHRA notice. Even in way better air conditions through elimination's Sunday, only five 6.30 laps were put in by blown cars (both Stott's, John Scialpi and Carl Spiering. Rick had as many 6.20 laps as the other teams combined had runs in the 6.30's. Pretty amazing! Jay Syvertsen had great .003 light in round one at ran his best ever run (6.63) at a track that is not at sea level. He is running John Scialpi power now and should be a tough competitor once they sort out the tune-up the truck likes. Joe Delehay failed to qualify for the event after an optimistic race at Mission the week prior, but lack of laps has been that teams downfall. Lee Smith is in the same vote as Delehay, as his return to Edmonton was his first event since last September. Pat Moore and the Ed Steffy team probably wished they never made the trek north as they did not qualify and blew the top of the hood off in a nitrous explosion. Von Smith arguably the best blown car since the rule changes could not figure out the surface at Bud Park and failed to make the field. It is not likely the Dr. Moon team will not return to Edmonton as they were none of the teams not happy with the facility.

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Final Qualifying:

Rick Distefano was on another planet compared to the rest of the Pro Mod contingent, as he was the only 6.20 competitor through the Friday (and only) sessions the teams were given on Friday. Besides his two laps, two others happenings in the class stood out. One, Von Smith made the trek for the South East ,only to be sitting on the side lines for elimination's, and two of the next six cars after Distefano were of the nitrous persuasion. Harold Martin, Mike Castellana Shannon Jenkins, Billy Harper, Pat Stoken and Dennis Radford all took their naturally aspirated rides to the top half of the field that is going to give the blown teams more ammo to grumble about.

The rest of the Pro Mod qualifying story Sunday night.