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August 5-7, 2005:
The Goodguys 8th Nitro Nationals at Pomona was truly Murphy's
Law - "What can go wrong, will go wrong". Hopefully,
this is a law they won't break again in the near future!
Leaving Santa
Rosa, loaded for bear, Jim Murphy and crew had high hopes for
a successful weekend in sunny Pomona. However, the first omen
of trouble came early when they blew an inside rear tire on the
tow truck and tore up the rear fender. After putting the spare
on and fixing the truck the best they could it was off to the
Fairplex. Once in Pomona they put new tires on the truck.
The weather was
in a word - miserable, about 95 to 106 degrees and very high
humidity due to some close by tropical storms. The asphalt was
135-140 degrees, with no breeze. The spectator count was understandably
way down, the racers were suffering. Mother nature won the event
early on.
Our first qualifying
session was yet another precursor to "this weekend isn't
going to be ours". Paired with Rick White, who left the
staring line before the tree was even activated, Murphy took
his time lighting his second staging light, waited a bit and
then left without seeing a yellow (He assumed the guard beam
would automatically start the tree) wrong, no time. This negated
a good run that hurt a few pistons. They came back that night
with 7% less nitro in the tank and ran a decent 6.04 at 246.
Everything looked clean and they were felling that they were
on the back side of hurting the engine, wrong again - they hurt
pistons - again. That run would ultimately plant Murphy in the
# 5 qualifying position.
In round one
of elimination on Saturday night Murphy lost a very close race
to Jeff Diehl 6.15 at 238 to his 6.16 at 230. After the run they
found that the manual retard on the magneto had broken and instead
of Murphy retarding the timing 5 degrees, it retarded it 18 degrees.
Guess that explained why the car just blubbered down the track.
The crew spent
most of the day Sunday trying to figure out why they were hurting
pistons and had no horsepower. They narrowed it down to the magneto
or the fuel system. They put the car in the trailer and headed
north. On the backside of the Grapevine the front brake rotors
started grinding. A little further up the road the trailer fender
looked funny. Pulling over Murphy discovered that somewhere behind
them was the right front trailer wheel and tire - the studs had
sheered. Ah, what can go wrong will go wrong.
They limped into
Porterville and called it a day. Monday they fixed all the damage
at Tim Beebe's shop and headed north again to the shop of Blake
Robertson where Bob Wyman Jr. is putting his magic to work to
checking our magnetos . Long story short, this was the first
good news we had gotten all weekend. Bob found multiple (fatal)
problems with the mags and 5 very bad plug wires. Not to end
things to quickly we found out our fuel pump had also taken a
dump. The mags and fuel pump are now in the hospital and we expect
a full recovery in Seattle September 2nd thru the 4th.
Enjoy a few photo
below of Murphy's Law Weekend
Final
Top Fuel Qualifying
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Psn Driver
ET
Speed
1. Rick McGee
5.949 @ 251.11
2. Terry Cox
6.003 @ 245.83
3. Lee Jennings 6.003 @ 235.35
4. Bill Dunlap 6.016
@ 247.86
5. Jim Murphy 6.048 @ 246.71
6. Pete Kaiser 6.052 @ 240.64
7. Rick White 6.055
@ 236.63
8. Bob Hallock 6.187
@ 235.91
9. Howard Haight 6.196 @ 219.45
10. Chuck Tanko 6.224 @ 224.49
11. Brendan Murry 6.226 @ 221.23
12. Jeff Diehl 6.246
@ 237.21
13. Sean Bellemeur 6.271 @ 239.68
14. Adam Sorokin 6.271 @ 228.13
15. Mendy Fry 6.288
@ 206.46
16. Brad Thompson 6.800 @ 210.37
--------- Not Qualified ---------
17. Rick Rogers 10.634 @ 99.07 |
As described above,
Jim Murphy was paired with Rick White for the first qualifying
session Friday afternoon.
White left before the
tree was activated and Murphy reacted to the sound and left early
as well. Neither car got a time and both made good runs. Some
unhappy folks after this one.
Dual red lights tell
the tale.
The second qualifying
session was Saturday night and ironically, Murphy was once again
paired with Rick White. This time neither driver was going to
chance leaving early - Murphy waited even longer than White.
Both drivers found the night air to their liking as White ripped
of a 6.055 at 236.63. But Murphy did him one better with a 6.048
at 246.71 which, for the moment, was good for the # 1 spot.
The engine gets warmed up prior to the second session
of qualifying.
In his third and final attempt Murphy was paired
with Brad Thompson.
Thompson failed to hook up to his liking on the super
hot track and clicked it early to a 6.800 at 210.37 leaving him
on the bubble. Murphy shut off early as well to a 6.267 at 232.13.
First round of eliminations was run Saturday night
and Murphy was paired with Jeff Diehl.
Diehl got a very slight lead off the line, didn't
smoke the tires, and held on for a 6.152 at 238.09 win over Murphy
who was right there with a 6.165 at 230.00. This was a very close
drag race! However, it marked the end of Murphy's racing for
the weekend. BUT, Murphy's law was still in force.
Instead of racing, Sunday
was spent trouble shooting which finally revealed a bad magneto
and fuel pump.
WW2 Racing now has
high hopes for the rest of the season!
See the WW2
Racing Schedule for upcoming events
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