Velocity Tour

November 19-21, 2004

By Mark"Sharky" King
www.classicfunnycarconnection.com
12/2/04

The Velocity Tour generated more negative publicity leading up to it than I have seen in a long time. So it was with a less than hopeful feeling in my guts, I drove down to Southwestern International Raceway Friday morning. The classes at the Classic Funny Car Tour were Blown Alcohol Funny Car, AA Gassers, and Blown Nitro Classic Funny Car.

The Velocity Tour Event was apparently a dismal failure from an attendance standpoint. I enjoyed the racing immensely as I usually do. The racers did their part; the promoters didn’t. It's as simple as that. This event was planned on the same weekend as the IHBA Finals in Phoenix and the Good Guys Rod and Custom Show in Scottsdale. There was little advertisement in the Phoenix area. In my opinion, Velocity Tour needed to have attendance from the Phoenix area in order to succeed. Tucson is just not big enough to support an event like this on its own.

Steve Tryon backfired the blower at about 1000 ft and blew the body off John Power's Sundance Funny Car. The body was a complete loss, but Tryon was uninjured other than having his bell severely rung.

Several racers gave it their all but still had to drop out of the competition due to technical difficulties. Mike Adams, Friday's winner, hurt the motor on his flopper on the last pass Friday night and couldn't return for the rest of the event.

Mike Day’s and Jim Broome’s Blown Alcohol Floppers had to drop out Saturday morning as well. The Sundance Funny Car owned by John Powers and driven by Steve Tryon was done for the weekend, after Tryon backfired the blower at about 1000 ft and blew the body off.

The news got interesting as far as purse payout went. Friday night Mike Adams was given a check to cover Friday’s purse. He was told to see the promoters of Velocity Tour Saturday evening to cash the check and to pick up Saturday's purse. It seemed that the promoters didn't have the cash available to cash Adams' check or to pay for the day's purse. The promoter did offer to cut another check, but Adams didn’t take him up on the offer. Instead he made arrangements to meet with the promoters on Sunday morning. The meeting between Mike Adams and Velocity Tour didn’t go well.

On Sunday, the racers staged a boycott until Velocity Tour paid the purse money owed to the racers for the past two days. The Velocity Tour promoters offered to write checks to cover all the purse money owed, but the racers wanted no part of that, fearing the checks might not be good. Wendy Brorsen of Southwestern International Raceway stepped in and took a check from the Velocity Tour to cover all the purse money and paid the racers at the end of the event. That was all that was needed to get the racers back on the track, but only for one pass to finish up the event.

There is talk of another Velocity Tour Event in Phoenix next May at Firebird Raceway. I think their idea of mixing drag racing, extreme sports, and music is a very marketable idea. With the lessons learned on this event, I hope to see them come back next year and recoup their losses. If this event does happen, I will be there.

MSD Ignition tech “J D St.Cyr” who can be found troubleshooting and servicing Pro Mags and other MSD products from the MSD trailer on the “manufacturers midway” at National events, also can be found behind the pipes of this blown small-block, six-second powered pick-up at various tracks around the Southwest. He won his races at Tucson.