No Nitro Qualifying on Friday at NED (1 Viewer)

[ProStockJunkie]

I heard that there will be no night time Nitro qualifying at Epping, so if you're going on Friday expecting to see some, you'll be disappointed.

Apparently this was listed in small print in the schedule, and many teams did not know this, thinking something as important as this, would be communicated directly to the teams.

 

[James]

I believe they'll still qualify Sat night. Last year because of the usual IHRA short fuel fields at Epping some cars that were in by Sat afternoon sat out Saturday night. Event sponsors were not pleased I guess so this is an attempt to increase the amount of fuel cars running the "Night of Fire".

(Comment by Evan Knoll from last year "Its a damn shame that the cars that were there did not run except the four for the 2nd qualifier this WILL CHANGE if I was in the croud I would want a part refund for the ticket I baught!!!!!!! The small nitro car count what do ya do after Indy cant blame the teams its alot of racing but again the cars that did not run and I fund the class and or the team that makes me real sad. Watch for changes comming soon!!!!!!! Thanks Evan.")

With Brainerd running the same weekend and Millican and Foley now concentrating on the NHRA I wonder if the TF field will produce 8 cars. From the qualifying list at Martin here's who can probably be expected to show up.

Bruce Litton Lucas Oil Dragster 4.630 328.54&
Bobby Lagana Jr. TORCO Dragster 4.725 305.42
Scotty Cannon Sealy Wright Auto Group Dragst 4.737 314.31
T.J. Zizzo Race News Magazine Dragster 5.918 148.04
Terry McMillen Torco Nitro Fuels Dragster 5.973 144.53
Chris Karamesines Strange Dragster DQ

I've always wondered why Rit Pustari doesn't tow up from Conn. for this event, maybe some bad blood with IHRA or track management?

I'm guessing here's the likely NFC

Bob Gilbertson Autolite XP Spark Plugs '06 St 4.860 289.07
Terry Haddock Gold Star Asphalt '06 Stratus 4.991 298.21
Dale Creasy Jr. Torco Race Fuels '05 Monte Car 5.041 297.68
Andy Kelley Holbrook Performance Parts '02 5.120 297.88
Jack Wyatt '06 Stratus 5.520 193.54
Mitch King Sunset Cove/Beyar Waste '05 Co 10.878 71.64

Should make for scintillating qualifying.

 

[nedannouncer]

Hey Jim,

There will be full fields in Epping, if my informal poll of racers at Michigan race is accurate. There should be 9 or 10 Nitro FC and 10 Top Fuel Dragsters, by my count. We'll see for sure this weekend, but I think that's pretty accurate.

Brian

 

[Billy]

Actually all 7 cars in each class last year made runs, including some spectacular numbers:

Left Lane: Bob Gilbertson Runs 4.786/315.78, Now #1

and

Right Lane: Doug Foley Runs 4.590/317.34

Both track E.T. records.

Both nitro fields were short 1 car so there was a first round bye for each.

 

[James]

Hey Jim,

There will be full fields in Epping, if my informal poll of racers at Michigan race is accurate. There should be 9 or 10 Nitro FC and 10 Top Fuel Dragsters, by my count. We'll see for sure this weekend, but I think that's pretty accurate.

Brian

That would be great, NED and it's fans deserve full fields.
I guess I don't fully understand marketing but the chance to do some direct marketing in a HUGE market like the Boston area would seem to me to be a better decision for a car not in contention for NHRA's top 8 spots then racing in a much smaller market like Brainard. Just shows you what I know.

 

[nitro]

Isn't Mike Smith running in nitro funny car and is Grant Flowers going to be at Epping?

 

[Pink]

Flowers was there, only one pass and that at idle Sat night.
Mike Smith was indeed there, posted a 5.429. Only one NFC
qualified in he 4's. Haddock's operation looked like a real
mess-whole lot of duct tape holding the body together.
In TF only Zizzo seemed to have the whole
package together. Lagana was on a solid run first session but
lifted down track when he began to spin the tires. Ran a 4.88
but slowed to 267. Apparently they only had one good set of
heads for the weekend.
Great to see Lagana putting together a more reliable combination
with some backing from Evan, and Bobby is always great to talk
to a the track.

 

[Bobby]

The ihra site has a blurb saying that friday nite pro quals were cancelled due to 'down time' , 'dew' and some other horshiit. I just got an email from my Dad saying he was home early from the race and that , ahem, 'IHRA SUCKS'
I know last year he didn't enjoy it at all, and after reading this post I'm really confused. How did you know ahead of time they would not qualify friday night? Since they cancelled it because of 'dew'

What a joke man.

 

[Pink]

How did you know ahead of time they would not qualify friday night? Since they cancelled it because of 'dew'

What a joke man.

Well, I would give IHRA and N.E.D. a pass here. True, I don't think they had any intention of running nitro qualifying Friday (short fields, short $, you do the math) when the cash cow is Saturday night.
To be fair it sounds like they could not have achieved a safe racing surface if they tried given the moisture and dew point. Before you string up N.E.D. for the conditions, I have seen the same at Reading when it is wet (which it always is, right?) and the sun goes down.

i thought that Epping this year was a real success for IHRA: they put on a show on the SAME weekend as Brainerd and STILL filled both the NFC and TF fields alongside a good ProMod field.

Far be it from me to be an Evan Knoll shill, but for us New Englanders the nitro options are few: Epping, Englishtown, or a long drive to Reading. Since Evan took over I get more nitro fumes for the buck than I ever have.

'Nuff said?

 

[Sully]

The fuel cars were not scheduled to run Friday night - period. Had nothing to do with the weather. That decision was made because the fields were small enough that most teams would only make one or maybe two qualifying runs and they wanted those to be in front of the Saturday crowd after a Saturday Night of Fire last year that saw many of the teams in the pits, not on the track.

This year's Friday night fiasco came about because of two massive oildowns in Top Dragster, the first took an hour to clean up and the track cooled down during that cleanup. The air temperature peaked in the mid-seventies during the day, but there was cloud cover all day and the track never got above 100 degrees. Both air and track temps took a nosedive as soon as the Sun went down. By the time the second oildown happened, the track was down to 75 degrees and cooling. The air was already in the mid-sixties. The dewpoint was 60 degrees. After an hour, the track was still far from ready for racing and dew was starting to form on surfaces like windshields and such. They pulled the plug with Pro Stock and Pro Mod in the lanes, looking at a 10:30 p.m. curfew and an unsafe race track.

The cleanup continued after the cancellation - and took another 1.5 hours because the cold oil didn't want to come up from the cold track surface. Even if there was no dew problem, they would have been unable to continue because of the curfew. We had to run the wipers and the defroster in our car in order to see where we were going when we left the track Friday night, so the dewpoint problem was very real, and we were regretting leaving our sweatshirts back in the room Friday morning because it was very chilly.

 

[James]

Well, I would give IHRA and N.E.D. a pass here. True, I don't think they had any intention of running nitro qualifying Friday (short fields, short $, you do the math) when the cash cow is Saturday night.
To be fair it sounds like they could not have achieved a safe racing surface if they tried given the moisture and dew point. Before you string up N.E.D. for the conditions, I have seen the same at Reading when it is wet (which it always is, right?) and the sun goes down.

i thought that Epping this year was a real success for IHRA: they put on a show on the SAME weekend as Brainerd and STILL filled both the NFC and TF fields alongside a good ProMod field.

Far be it from me to be an Evan Knoll shill, but for us New Englanders the nitro options are few: Epping, Englishtown, or a long drive to Reading. Since Evan took over I get more nitro fumes for the buck than I ever have.

'Nuff said?

David I tend to agree with one qualifier. I think the IHRA needs to work harder at filling the fuel fields for this event. If the big show is about Saturday night then some sort of real qualifying is needed, not just a couple of full pulls and allot of shut offs. I'm hard core and actually enjoy low buck nitro teams but for the Saturday night crowd the fuel show was disappointing. I attend this race each year and the Saturday night crowd seemed smaller to me, and Sunday the place was sparce.

 

[ProStockJunkie]

How did you know ahead of time they would not qualify friday night? Since they cancelled it because of 'dew'

Not sure what they told anyone the night of the race, but it was in small print on the schedule. Apparently because of low turnout, they wanted the cars to run on Saturday when there was a larger audience, or something like that.

 

[nedannouncer]

Man, I thought Larry's explanation covered all of the bases a couple of posts ago, but I guess you may not have seen it.

Typically the fuel cars do not run on Friday night in Epping. Aside from last year, they had not run on Friday night for around three years. I'm surprised to see this posed as some kind of bait and switch....it's not a departure from the norm, last year was and it did not work.

The reason the qualifying session was cancelled on Friday was because of (exactly what Larry described) two massive oil downs in Top Dragster, combined with a local noise curfew, combined with the fact that the dew point and the temperature met, combined with the fact that the track had cooled to a morgue slab. If the first two Pro Stocks to hit the track went turtle, the outcry would be defeaning that race officials did the wrong thing trying to get cars down the track. There's only one phrase that trumps "The show must go on" and that is "safety first".

For two people who were not at the race, Bob and Jackee are all over this...


Brian

 

[ProStockJunkie]

I thought I'd replied to this, but maybe it got lost in the 25 applications I have open.

I responded to Bob before I read Larry's reply.

yeah, it's a little redundant.

BTW... one didn't have to be there to have heard about this from a couple of sources .

 

[Evan Knoll]

NOTE!!!!! I have not taken over IHRA yet but if or when the time ever comes you will see a very large change in drag racing and for the future of the sport and for the fans and tv and sponsors packages will be out of this world. Thanks Evan.

 

[Murph]

NOTE!!!!! I have not taken over IHRA yet but if or when the time ever comes you will see a very large change in drag racing and for the future of the sport and for the fans and tv and sponsors packages will be out of this world. Thanks Evan.

lol, not sure where that came from but I have to say I'd love to see what you'd do if given the chance.

 

[luxexpress]

NOTE!!!!! I have not taken over IHRA yet but if or when the time ever comes you will see a very large change in drag racing and for the future of the sport and for the fans and tv and sponsors packages will be out of this world. Thanks Evan.

I for one would sure like to see this happen. I hope things come together to make this possible as I think it would truely bring drag racing to the "next level."

 

[James]

Just wanna say this, the Amalie North American Nationals held at New England Dragway this past weekend was a success in my opinion. There is some small tweeking that needs to be done to make the event even better and sometimes we tend to talk about the negatives and take the positives for granted.

The crowd reaction when Bobby Lagana's win light came on was awesome. Sunday the stands are populated by more hardcore fans and most in attendance understood what a win means to that team.

TJ Zizzo and team have one bad Hot Rod and his quick pedal job in the semis was classic.

The Alky FC final was a classic and goes down as one of the 10 best Alky battles ever at the facility. Not sure how close it was at the stripe but they were GLUED together all the way down.

Pro Mod and Mountain Motor Pro Stocks put on a great show with lots of close races, holeshot wins and wild rides!

Very few oil downs on Saturday and Sunday, great job by the racers and hats off to IHRA and NED personel for doing a quick job on the few clean ups that were required.

The track was prepped great all weekend with Sunday's hot sun taking a bit of a toll on traction but that's racing.

Excellent job by IHRA of keeping the Pro segment on schedule, when they say a session is running at noon they mean noon!

Now, some tweeks I'd like to see:
More Fuel cars (Am I sounding like a broken record yet?)
It would be nice to have the Saturday afternoon Pro session run later then Noon, allot of folks show up around 3:00pm to 4:00pm and missed the early session.
When the Saturday night is over it would be nice to have the large gates opened at the entrance so we all don't have to file at once through those small entrance portals and for the folks parked way back in the secondary lot if the gates behind the spectator stands could be opened saving those folks about a 1/2 mile of walking.
Oh yeah most people I talked with liked the September date better. I understand the race was moved to help get the competitor count up, did it achieve that goal?

All in all a well run event that most on the grounds seemed to enjoy.

Oh yeah, one other small tweek, could we forbid the IHRA announcer from ever saying "Bow chicka bow wow" ever again at NED?

 

[Ken]

Oh yeah, one other small tweek, could we forbid the IHRA announcer from ever saying "Bow chicka bow wow" ever again at NED?

I'll second that.

 

[Pink]

Oh yeah, one other small tweek, could we forbid the IHRA announcer from ever saying "Bow chicka bow wow" ever again at NED?

I wasn't the only one grinding my teeth about that?
I lost count of how many times the "that was easy!" line passed his lips.

Had a great time, but the announcer's antics actually made me nostalgic
for an endless loop of Motel 6 commercials on the JumboTron.