Fri, 3 Nov 2006, 05:45 PM Nostalgia Top Fuel Qualifying Notes, Session #1

By Darryl Jackman

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Notes from round 1 qualifying in Nostalgia Top Fuel at the Goodguys, 8th Annual Fuel and Gas Finals listing lane, driver name, elapsed time, top speed, and position in order following run:

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Left Lane: Dan Rusk Runs 6.518/174.75, Now #1
Right Lane: Rick Rogers No Time, Now #2

1:47 p.m. Top Fuel comes out for the first of the two qualifying sessions that they will get here at the Fuel and Gas Finals. The schedules shows one today and one more tomorrow. Rogers gets a tough break as the car wouldn't come out of reverse. He shutoff and Rusk took the single. He looked good but clicked it early.

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Left Lane: Rick McGee Runs 6.049/249.44, Now #2
Right Lane: Brad Thompson Runs 5.853/228.07, Now #1

Brad Thompson, multi time low qualifier, meets up with Rick McGee in this pair. The tire pressure rules don't seem to be having much impact on the long cars as the Goodguys are enforcing the 10 pound minimum today. Some have said that it would be the speeds and not the ET that might suffer but MCGee's 249 looked pretty nice. McGee was the winner of the 2005 March Meet and Thompson was the top qualifier.

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Left Lane: Sean Bellemeur Runs 5.875/253.87, Now #2
Right Lane: Rick White Runs 6.033/246.84, Now #3

White was forced to pedal a couple of times and the ET shows that. Nice lap for Bellemeur and he slides into #2 in the field. Big speed for him as well.

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Left Lane: Jim Murphy Runs 6.190/228.36, Now #5
Right Lane: Brendan Murry Runs 8.058/107.60, Now #7

Both cars were soft on this hit and Murry actually called it off before half track. No tire smoke and no smoke from the engines but problems just the same. Murphy may have just been tiptoeing based on the tire issues.

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Left Lane: John Shoemaker Runs 6.509/210.18, Now #6
Right Lane: Shannon Stuart Runs 8.058/55.76, Now #9

Stuart becomes the first car to fall to tire smoke in the session. He got about 20 to 30 feet out and struck the tires fairly hard. Shoemaker had a cloud of clutch dust behind him but stayed with the run all the way.

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Left Lane: Denver Schutz Runs 5.906/251.74, Now #3
Right Lane: Adam Sorokin Runs 7.153/139.10, Now #9

Sorokin looked good until about half track. The car started to walk on him and he was getting close to the center stripe before he lifted. No drama at all of Schutz as the raisin farmer puts his ride into #3 in the show.

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Left Lane: Jack Harris Runs 6.783/168.06, Now #10
Right Lane: Bill Dunlap Runs 6.268/194.72, Now #7

Harris was on and off the pedal and finally had to call it off as the back end of the car was swinging like a clock. Dunlap was off the pedal early as well.

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Left Lane: Mendy Fry Runs 5.807/251.46, Now #1
Right Lane: Scott Mason Runs 5.940/241.87, Now #5

Say hello to your new #1 qualifier as Mendy Fry takes her Chevy powered fueler to the top of the heap. Career best numbers for Fry and the Chevy powered cars. Mason runs his career best as well and slots into the top half for the moment.

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Left Lane: Brett Harris Runs 5.855/259.36, Now #3
Right Lane: Howard Haight Runs 6.001/236.28, Now #7

Final pair makes their runs and Fry holds on to the top spot as Harris falls a bit short. He does manage to take the top speed of the meet title the first round on that hit. Haight was just a couple of ticks behind.