Ok, here ya go Jon and all the other folks who adored this strip.
First off, this race was a rousing success on the track and at the ticket booth. 15,279 fans jammed Lions for this monster event, two of them were dad and myself.
TopFuel
41 cars entered this event vying for the 32 spots open. 41 AA/FD's for this 1-day event, impressive.
The Top Fuel field was dominated by the awesome and legendary Beebe & Mulligan digger shoed aptly by John "The Zookeeper" Mulligan. Mulligan qualified number 1 with a world Top Fuel record of 6.70 at a booming 230mph blast in the afternoon. The air was flippin' right in the afternoon at Lions, as usual!
Round 1-Mulligan ran a 6.84 to beat the ride of Trotter & Sutherland.
Round 2-The Zookeeper ran a 6.80 to beat Gary Read in the Groundshakers rail.
Round 3-Mulligan ran another .80 as he trashed Leland Kolb with a 6.89.
Round 4- Mulligan slowed to a winning 7.16 in taking out James Warren in the W-C-M ride.
The final would pit the Beebe & Mulligan ride vs. the Keith Black powered Hawaiin driven by Mike Snively, Keith Black was in attendance and did the tuning all day and night. Starting technician Chick Grist (remember him Cliff?) engaged the Sure Fire roller starters and the final was on. Mulligan put a gate job on Snively and smoked him with a 6.99 at 220 to work over the Leong ride's 7.40.
Top Gas Eliminator
19 cars entered the race for the 8 open spots, this was the first ever, repeat first ever all 7 second field. The final came down to Billy "The Kid" Scott vs. Monty Montgomery. Scott ran a great 7.51 at 198 to take out Montgomery's very decent 7.78 at 185.
Junior Fuel Eliminator
21 cars signed in for this very tough to make 8-car eliminator. This hard fought bracket would boil down to the awesome-fast ride of Rea & Evans vs. the northwest ride of Cross & Mann. John Evans would just flat smoke his competition with a 8.25 beating a shut off 9.91 of Cross & Mann. The Rea & Evans ride was just bad a$$.
Competition Eliminator
11 car signed up for the 4-car eliminator. Larry Dixon in the ultra-cool Fireside Inn car dominated both rounds for the trophy and check. Dixon destroyed Les Liggit in the final with a nice 7.51 at 196 over Liggit's outclassed 9.72 at only 104.
Fuel Altereds
13 AA/FA's tried out for the 4-car field. Sush Matsabura dominated the day during qualifying but got beat in the final by Leon Fitzgerald in the rat engine Pure Heaven.
AA/Gas Supercharged
9 Gassers tried out for the 4-car eliminator. The money round came down to Ron Bizio vs. Junior Thompson in "Big" John Mazmanian's number 2 ride. Thompson ran a 8.81 over Bizio's 9.00 attempt.
Funny Cars
This was a booked in 4-car round robin match race featuring Butch Leal, Doug Thorley, Jack Christman, and Gas Rhonda.
Leal won all three rounds and was the winner.
Without any bracket cars, you add up the car count for the "hot" cars, there were 118 of them.
Lions Drag Strip-"The Giant Of The West" delivered yet again.
TopFuel@Lions
Really interesting to read above post. The names, the ET's & speeds.... wow
