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Goodguys 2000 Nitro
Nationals
Team
WW2 entered the Goodguys 5th West
Coast Hot Rod Happenin' with high hopes -- ready to race after
a 2+ month layoff. As the press release will attest to, things
didn't go according to plans this time.
Round
one of qualifying saw Jim Murphy paired with Shep Ginzburg. The
(adjusted) altitude was high and the WW2 car was down on power...
shaking their brand new M&H tires. The run was only good
for the #9 qualifying spot which is not where Murphy and Team
wanted to be.
To save
weight, the WW2 Top Fuel dragster doesn't use a reverser (as
the other cars do) so the crew has to get him back to the line
after a burnout the old fashioned way.
Murphy heats up the tires prior to his second
qualifying attempt.
On their
second and last shot at qualifying, Team WW2 was faced with a
nice big oil slick in front of us (cleaned up but leaving a marginal
track). They got down through the first part of the track fine
and actually had good 60' and 330' times (1.11 and a 2.82). But
then Jim hit that grease sweep and it was just spinnin' 'em to
beat the band. He was in and out of the throttle, holding the
brake the whole way and managed to get it to the other end with
an impressive 6.30 at 222 mph. This was good for the #5 qualifying
spot that would pit Murphy against the Gotelli Speed Shop car
come race day.
Knowing
they would have to step up the cars performance to beat Larry
Gotelli in Round 1 Sunday, the Team installed a new blower and
made other performance adjustments that proved to be too much
for the track. Shortly after this photo was taken the WW2 car
started smoking the tires and the race was over.
As usual,
Murphy blamed himself for the loss. The sign of a classy and
confident driver. "I made the wrong
decision. I knew Larry was going to run good. i knew we weren't
going to go out there and run 6.20 and beat him, I felt." |
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