UP AND OVER!

In his line of work, the Agent is well familiar with chicken blowers, but this is the first time he's witnessed a chicken blowover! Making his debut for the popular "Chicken Chokers" team, Bisbee, AZ's Mike Burns went for a wild ride July 3, at the NHRA Division 1 race at Lebanon Valley Dragway in upstate New York. Almost immediately upon launching in the third and final qualifying round, Burns' car hiked the front wheels and by the 60-foot marker was well on its way to a rare Top Alcohol blowover.

"It left normal, but then it came up real fast," an uninjured Burns recalled. "I wasn't too worried at first because of what [team owner] Len (Cottrell) told me about what it does, but it just hooked so hard and when I was looking at nothing but sky I knew it was gone."

Sitting 9th going into the session, Cottrell made the decision to switch to beadlock tires. After consulting with Burns and assuring him the car rarely entered a wheelstand, the two mutually agreed to remove its wheelie bar in an effort to save a little weight and hopefully help them break into the eight-car field. "Obviously, I wish we hadn't done that now," Cottrell said as his car's twisted skeleton lay nearby. "But it wasn't anything Mike did wrong (computer records showed Burns already had the throttle closed and the fuel shut off just 1.4 seconds into the run) and it (the car) had never done anything like that before, so we're really surprised it happened."

Cottrell said his Gaithersburg, MD-based team, which won the Div. 1 championship with Fran Monaghan at the wheel last year, will work hard to get back on track, but may miss a race while making repairs. "It'll probably have to be front-halved and back-halved," he said. "A lot will depend on the money situation." (Ian Tocher photos) [7-9-2004]

MOTORSPORTS DAY IN ENGLEWOOD, COLORADO

The 12th Annual Motorsports Day will be held July 14 in Englewood, Colorado. The event, hosted by Craig Hospital, a leading rehabilitation and research center for spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury, will run from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the vicinity of Girard and S. Clarkson streets. Nearly 200 vehicles will be on display, including street rods, antique restorations, race cars, muscle cars, and vehicles for persons with disabilities.

Cory McClenathan will be in attendance with the Carrier Boyz/Berryman Products Top Fuel Dragster before racing at the NHRA Mopar Mile-High Nationals July 16-18. Darrell Gwynn, the former Top Fuel racer paralyzed in a 1990 accident, and his father Jerry will participate in the donation of a power wheelchair by Sunrise Medical, manufacturer of Quickie wheelchairs. [7-9-2004]