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Phil Burkart knows, all too well, the complete "drag racing list of witty sayings," many of which center on the unforgiving nature of a sport that can allow you to reach the mountain top one week, but leave you stranded at base camp the next. "Hero to zero" is the most hackneyed of those phrases, but Burkart did make the field here, and therefore was not a "zero" by any stretch of the definition. Still, his first round loss stung just the same.
Running his Havoline/Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Chevy for the final time, Burkart struggled enough in qualifying to raise more than a few eyebrows, though in the end he and his team came through with a clutch performance during their final shot. On Friday, an early tire-smoker was followed by severe tire shake during the evening session. With brisk and dry air blanketing Virginia this time around, tuning curves were all over the place and huge numbers could easily be followed by unsuccessful runs. Burkart went into Saturday knowing he and his team needed to right the ship.
"The air here was so unbelievable, but in a lot of ways that made it harder on the tuners and the drivers," Burkart said. "The front half of this track was fine, but from half-track on it was loose, and it stayed that way most of the weekend. When the air is helping you make this much power, but the track isn't cooperating, you're heading off into tuning territory that's not all that comfortable.
"On Friday, the first run was more or less a shot in the dark, for everyone, and after that you just had to start working the tune-up to fit the track. It wasn't that easy, though, believe me. We came out on Saturday knowing we were really going to look like fools if we failed to make the field, so the pressure was pretty evident all around. We needed to set a baseline, and then hope we had the ability to massage it enough to bump our way in."
The first half of that task was completed when Burkart drove to a clean 4.983 during Saturday's first session. That wasn't good enough to bump into the top 16, but it gave Co-Crew Chiefs Chris Cunningham and Marc Denner a better shot at delivering the goods on the final shot.
"Getting in on the final pass is never a good thing," Burkart said. "It doesn't matter if you're absolutely 100 percent sure the tune-up is right, because any one of a thousand freak things can break or trip you up. But, there we were, knowing we had the right combination in the car to get in, but also knowing we had only one shot to do it and nothing could break, or leak, or fall off the car. I was nervous."
He shouldn't have been. Cunningham, Denner, and the blue crew not only tuned the car correctly, they bolted everything on securely and sent Burkart on his way to a solid 4.882 on his final pass, securing the 15th spot in the field. Owning that position, Burkart then waited to see who would eventually land in the No. 2 spot, to fill the other half of his first round match-up. When Robert Hight landed No. 2 it only seemed logical, since Burkart and Hight had faced each other in the last round of competition on the tour, the final round in Reading.
Heading to the track at the crack of dawn on Sunday, Team CSK scraped the ice off their vehicle windshields, bundled up against the 37-degree temperature, and readied themselves for a rematch with Hight. By the time the Funny Car class began round one, the air had warmed to the pleasant upper-50s, and Burkart was ready.
"I expected to have to run somebody huge, because that's what you get when you're 15th, and after Reading I guess it was only natural to have the rematch of the final there," Burkart said. "Those guys are in the hunt for the championship, so you know they weren't planning on letting us take them out again, but I still felt like we had enough in it to shock them."
As the tree flashed amber, Burkart did what he nearly always does, by leaving first. His standard superb light (this time a .058) was nearly twice as quick as Hight's reaction, but when your car runs like Robert Hight's, the battle at the tree is often unimportant. Indeed, Hight was pulling away soon after both cars passed the 60-foot timer, and when Burkart's car faded toward the centerline, Hight tore away for the finish line.
As the Havoline car worked its way toward the 330 mark, tire smoke and a blower explosion made nearly simultaneous appearances.
"It got over there a little, and that's probably why it broke the tires loose, but I gave it another shot, pedaling it to see if we couldn't give Robert another battle like we did in Reading, and something in the motor didn't like that. It broke an intake valve, I guess, because I hit the pedal again and it jacked the blower right off the motor. That was it. We lost, we broke a lot of stuff, and it's a good thing the Havoline car doesn't have to run again, because it's cracked and broken in a bunch of places.
"It's really depressing to come here, get rained out, come back again a week later, and then struggle to even do what we did here. It was hard work to get in the show, and we didn't have an answer for Hight's 4.76 in round one. That was low E.T. of the session, by a long way. I guess they were paying us back for the final in Reading, because I feel like we got spanked pretty hard."
Under the heading of "Good Things That Happened In Richmond," the sky was blue, the air was dry, and Burkart added another 31 points to his 2006 total. Other than that, it ended with a bang.
Burkart's First-Round Finish Has Explosive Ending
Phil Burkart knows, all too well, the complete "drag racing list of witty sayings," many of which center on the unforgiving nature of a sport that can allow you to reach the mountain top one week, but leave you stranded at base camp the next. "Hero to zero" is the most hackneyed of those phrases, but Burkart did make the field here, and therefore was not a "zero" by any stretch of the definition. Still, his first round loss stung just the same.
Running his Havoline/Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Chevy for the final time, Burkart struggled enough in qualifying to raise more than a few eyebrows, though in the end he and his team came through with a clutch performance during their final shot. On Friday, an early tire-smoker was followed by severe tire shake during the evening session. With brisk and dry air blanketing Virginia this time around, tuning curves were all over the place and huge numbers could easily be followed by unsuccessful runs. Burkart went into Saturday knowing he and his team needed to right the ship.
"The air here was so unbelievable, but in a lot of ways that made it harder on the tuners and the drivers," Burkart said. "The front half of this track was fine, but from half-track on it was loose, and it stayed that way most of the weekend. When the air is helping you make this much power, but the track isn't cooperating, you're heading off into tuning territory that's not all that comfortable.
"On Friday, the first run was more or less a shot in the dark, for everyone, and after that you just had to start working the tune-up to fit the track. It wasn't that easy, though, believe me. We came out on Saturday knowing we were really going to look like fools if we failed to make the field, so the pressure was pretty evident all around. We needed to set a baseline, and then hope we had the ability to massage it enough to bump our way in."
The first half of that task was completed when Burkart drove to a clean 4.983 during Saturday's first session. That wasn't good enough to bump into the top 16, but it gave Co-Crew Chiefs Chris Cunningham and Marc Denner a better shot at delivering the goods on the final shot.
"Getting in on the final pass is never a good thing," Burkart said. "It doesn't matter if you're absolutely 100 percent sure the tune-up is right, because any one of a thousand freak things can break or trip you up. But, there we were, knowing we had the right combination in the car to get in, but also knowing we had only one shot to do it and nothing could break, or leak, or fall off the car. I was nervous."
He shouldn't have been. Cunningham, Denner, and the blue crew not only tuned the car correctly, they bolted everything on securely and sent Burkart on his way to a solid 4.882 on his final pass, securing the 15th spot in the field. Owning that position, Burkart then waited to see who would eventually land in the No. 2 spot, to fill the other half of his first round match-up. When Robert Hight landed No. 2 it only seemed logical, since Burkart and Hight had faced each other in the last round of competition on the tour, the final round in Reading.
Heading to the track at the crack of dawn on Sunday, Team CSK scraped the ice off their vehicle windshields, bundled up against the 37-degree temperature, and readied themselves for a rematch with Hight. By the time the Funny Car class began round one, the air had warmed to the pleasant upper-50s, and Burkart was ready.
"I expected to have to run somebody huge, because that's what you get when you're 15th, and after Reading I guess it was only natural to have the rematch of the final there," Burkart said. "Those guys are in the hunt for the championship, so you know they weren't planning on letting us take them out again, but I still felt like we had enough in it to shock them."
As the tree flashed amber, Burkart did what he nearly always does, by leaving first. His standard superb light (this time a .058) was nearly twice as quick as Hight's reaction, but when your car runs like Robert Hight's, the battle at the tree is often unimportant. Indeed, Hight was pulling away soon after both cars passed the 60-foot timer, and when Burkart's car faded toward the centerline, Hight tore away for the finish line.
As the Havoline car worked its way toward the 330 mark, tire smoke and a blower explosion made nearly simultaneous appearances.
"It got over there a little, and that's probably why it broke the tires loose, but I gave it another shot, pedaling it to see if we couldn't give Robert another battle like we did in Reading, and something in the motor didn't like that. It broke an intake valve, I guess, because I hit the pedal again and it jacked the blower right off the motor. That was it. We lost, we broke a lot of stuff, and it's a good thing the Havoline car doesn't have to run again, because it's cracked and broken in a bunch of places.
"It's really depressing to come here, get rained out, come back again a week later, and then struggle to even do what we did here. It was hard work to get in the show, and we didn't have an answer for Hight's 4.76 in round one. That was low E.T. of the session, by a long way. I guess they were paying us back for the final in Reading, because I feel like we got spanked pretty hard."
Under the heading of "Good Things That Happened In Richmond," the sky was blue, the air was dry, and Burkart added another 31 points to his 2006 total. Other than that, it ended with a bang.
