July
5-7, 2001
WW2 Photo Highlights
Jim
Murphy and WW2 Racing were among the elite 16 Nostalgia Top Fuel
Dragsters invited to the NHRA 50th Anniversary Nationals. Here
Jim makes his first burnout of the event during Thursday qualifying.
After an unexpected storm delayed
Thursday's qualifying and made the new track hard to read. Many
of the cars smoked the tires in the one session allotted to the
N/TF cars and Murphy was one of them. As Jim leaves the starting
line a wisp of smoke can already be seen under the tire.
Once the tire
smoke negated any chance of a good run Jim shut the car off early
with an 8.40 ET at only 114 MPH and coasted through the shutdown
area.
Dismount.
Murphy exits the car on the other end of the track.
A hot race track
an too much power caused Murphy to smoke the tires again during
Friday's first qualifying session. Note the sell out crowd! This
was the first time thousands of NHRA fans had ever seen the Nostalgia
Top Fuel cars and boy, were they impressed.
In the third
and final qualifying session on Friday night, WW2 bounced back
to run a solid 6.13 @ 231 MPH to qualify # 6 in this stellar
field. Denver Schutz in the near lane failed to qualify.
The Nostalgia
Top Fuel pits saw a steady flow of fans all three days. The WW2
OSH camp was one of the most visited as Jim Murphy is not only
well known, but fan and media friendly.
Murphy
gets into the car prior to his Thursday qualifying run.
The tower at
Pomona makes an impressive backdrop for the cars as they are
started prior to running.
Another
angle of Murphy's Thursday attempt.
Backing up after
a burnout is a crucial procedure. The crew must make sure the
car is put back in its "foot prints" and properly placed
in "the groove" to assure maximum traction on the run.
WW2 Racing's
weekend ended as it began - in tire smoke. Once again they had
too much horsepower for the track and lost in Round One to the
eventual runner-up, Rance McDaniel who set low ET of the meet
on this
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