Gassers, Floppers and Rail Jobs OH MY -or- what I learned on my journey to and at the March Meet.

- Tehachapi is the land of 4 seasons, even says so on their sign. I thought every where on Earth had 4 seasons.
- The once-a-decade or so it rains in Mojave ... it REALLY RAINS. They were big old fat rain drops that I thought were going to come thru my windshield.
- Famoso is not in Bakersfield. It is 30 miles away.
- With apologies to the late, great Steve Evans, it really was a fiberglass forest.
- It must be pretty cool to be sponsored by a strip club.
- Austin Coil likes the Joe Walla Band.
- Kevin Stith is a pretty cool dude. Good with the maths too.
- Gino Ofria is a pretty cool dude too. A/Gas is a wicked class.
- Roo-Man is building Nostalgia Top Fuel chassis. Sweet.
- Hooters are not a pre-requisite to work at the Hooters in Bakersfield.
- It still has not been sufficiently explained to me how you can roll a car on the burnout.
- Was standing between 3 Funny Cars warming up this morning, I can still taste the nitro.
- My pics are gonna suck compared to Paul Flores's, that dude was working for the shots. You will love it when he posts his pics. He is lucky enough to go tomorrow ... I had to high tail it back to Vegas for work tomorrow.

Without further ado ...

March Meet 2010 pictures from racing photos on webshots (http://community.webshots.com/album/576943996INztpX)

Nice stuff Chris... See what you meant about PF really getting into his shots... personally, I really think the Blair Speed Shop car needs to be three tone, blue one side, white down the middle, red on the other.

Thanks
d'kid

Great photos, thanks for posting them Chris. :cool:

Rapid

That maybe they need to trim a few categories so the program doesn't run over to Monday?

:rolleyes:;)

That maybe they need to trim a few categories so the program doesn't run over to Monday?

I think it is just a function of the sheer number of nitro cars on the grounds. 40 Funny Cars and 20 Top Fuelers take a long time to run. If there were 8 Funny Cars and 8 Top Fuelers, we would have easily gotten 2 qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday, and eliminations would have wrapped up yesterday no problem. Instead, we only got 1 session on each Friday and Saturday ... but they lasted well over 3 hours, which greatly limits the rest of the program. And trying to run 5 rounds on Sunday was always going to be a tough stretch, especially when first round lasts 2 hours plus.

Nice group of photos Chris. I don't understand why they painted the board on the front of the Howard Cams twin black. I have photos I took of the car in 1961 at Island Dragway in New Jersey, just before the US Nationals, and the piece of plywood was painted white, with a single, round Howard Cams decal in the center.

Word from the track is Pruett defeats Densham in the final

NT/F-Sorokin
NF/C-Pruett-Leduc
A/Fuel-Wayne
Jr. Fuel (W) Dean Carter 7.01@187 over J.D. Zink 7.42

:);)

No commentary about the Teaser Pleaser gentleman's club?

It was great you came out to the Mecca of nostalgia drag racing. Hope ya liked it.

No commentary about the Teaser Pleaser gentleman's club?

I heard some folks had a good time there. I was back at the hotel, teeth brushed and in bed by 9pm. ;)

Thanks for the kind words Chris, it was nice to meet both you and Paul in person. I just wish I could have spent some more time with you two, but we were chasing an electrical problem.

I would also like to offer some highlights and lowlights:
Spending an hour with Jess Tyree one-on-one talking about his life after his wife Pat passed last year, making soups and stews, our world travels, and other non-racing issues
Planning summer surf trips with our fellow competitors
Helping Harold Hungerford, who has struggled for years to get his car going, with some problem solving and making the car run
Meeting people from New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Germany and Canada
Some of the best bar-b-ques I’ve ever had.
The funny car show did not live up to the hype that was made beforehand (sorry Darr, the truth may hurt), but I still like them.
Cars were rolling over for many reasons: a cold track (Saturday I measured it to be 63 degrees), aggressive driving, and rain on the track after applying VHT, and so on.
The B/Gassers being left in the staging lanes for five hours waiting between rain delays and while the nitro classes being ran. FIVE HOURS. Why they were not sent back to their pits, no one knows.

Some observations:
Force still walks with a noticeable limp
I think that htey used more VHT this weekend than most tracks use in a year
The March Meet was better when NHRA was not involved
They're still trying to put ten lbs. of **** in a five lbs. bag
The sportsman racers are treated like third-class citizens. As one racer put it, “we’re the only clowns that are willing to pay to be in the circus.”
NHRA really does not know how the nostalgia racer thinks. I wonder if they care.
Like last year, the Heritage Series will see smaller car counts with them as the season progresses, while other series will grow in car counts.
I think like in the big show, the media focuses too much of their attention on the nitro classes, and misses out on some good racing
Thanks to Bangshift.com, I can watch all the racing that I missed
Dragfest will be what the March Meet use to be, except much warmer
I still have a weekend hangover

Gino

The March Meet was better when NHRA was not involved


Geno, what part of NHRA involvement are you referring to?

The race is put on by The Kern County Racing Association and Blake & John Bowser, not the NHRA, they buy a license from NHRA to use the Heritage Series name and logo.


52nd March Meet Coverage (http://www.dragracingonline.com/livecoverage/xii_2-marchmeet-1.html)

Chris & Paul nice to finally put a name and face together, also both of your care packages are waiting for you in the trailer. Don't be bashfull!!!!!
Chris, Great picts, WE WANT MORE AND WE WANT THEM NOW!
Paul, We're waiting....I know yours are in the camera:D
Gino, In a perfect world............................................. .....it will never be perfect
Darr, Where were you hiding all weekend?
The ice chest is still full, so we that were there must have been cold.
John & Blake great job given the weather & continual oildowns.
I had double vision all day yesterday from Hooters & Deja Vu :eek:
Found out that there are at least 7 more funnies in various stages of completion.
Could we here 64 FUNNY CARS next year

Chris & Paul nice to finally put a name and face together, also both of your care packages are waiting for you in the trailer. Don't be bashfull!!!!!
....
Paul, We're waiting....I know yours are in the camera:D

It was great to meet you and also Gino finally.

I have a TON of great pics, but.......

I have a delima in finding somewhere to host them with unlimited bandwidth that doesn't cost me anything.

I wish I could post more than 4 images per post here. Would make it easier for me to post the pics.
*Edit: ok, the site admins got back to me. I will have to try to figure out some other way of posting pics.

Darr, thanks for the props! :::Drag Racing Online::: March Meet Weekend Coverage - 3/9/10 (http://www.dragracingonline.com/livecoverage/xii_2-marchmeet-1.html) LOL Certainly not what I was expecting.

Just wanted to see more than just funny cars and T/F getting press. Okay, I'll take back half of what I said. Still, I wish NHRA would offer some sort of questionaire or get out and interview the common racer if they want to improve their product. And keep the entries under 500! The guy turning in his credentials in fron of us had a registration #519.

Gino

Oh one more thing, we had engine #1 in the car which has a set of special symetrical style heads casted for us by Brodix on it with a homemade manifold and headers. I think you only have seen engine #3 which has the traditional bow-ties on them.

Come by B&M car show on Mar. 21 and I'll show you them, Welcome to B&M Racing & Performance Products! (http://www.bmracing.com/bmracing/default.html)

OH one last thing, my Acura was stolen with your sticker on it, do you have another one.

This Bantum looks really cherry. Looking through the results, it looks like he lost in the first round of 7.0 pro

March Meet 003 pictures from racing photos on webshots (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2898703970084643490LzHduj)
http://www.famosoraceway.com/2010mm/2010MarchMeetFinalResults.pdf

Gino,
NHRA has nothing to do with the MM, they run the Hot Rod Reunion.

Kevin, NHRA runs the Heritage Series. Actually I don't think anyone runs the Heritage Series, it just happens. The NHRA museum runs the reunions.

This Bantum looks really cherry. Looking through the results, it looks like he lost in the first round of 7.0 pro

March Meet 003 pictures from racing photos on webshots (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2898703970084643490LzHduj)
http://www.famosoraceway.com/2010mm/2010MarchMeetFinalResults.pdf

This car use to be known as the Batto Trucking Cosley. See the picture at the bottom of the page. Combustion Chamber-2005 17th Goodguys Nitro Nationals (http://www.maziracing.com/05sonoma/index.htm)
It was cool then and hot now.

Chris,

-3WnoWT50v4

NHRA sanctions the heritage series and the tracks pay fee to be part of the series.