Richard
Hartman (shown with wife, Tina, and daughters Allie, 2;
Ashley, 7; and Alexis, 9) broke into the 16-car nitro coupe
field in dramatic fashion. Not only did his final-session
4.960/293.47 pass come dangerously close to the left guardwall,
but he barely made it in time to run. When the rain returned
late in the afternoon, Hartman, who was sitting 18th at
the time, thought the fourth qualifying round would be
cancelled, so he drove to Anderson, SC, about an hour away,
to witness his daughters’ communion. While there,
however, his crew told him track drying had commenced,
so as soon as the service was over, Hartman hightailed
it back to Atlanta Dragway in record time. “If I’d
been pulled over I’d have gone to jail,” he
said. He arrived just as the last two pairs of Top Fuelers
were making their attempts and literally changed into his
driving suit in the staging lanes, just in time to be the
first Funny Car out and bump Jim Head from the field.
After
qualifying fourth, Brandon Bernstein set a new Atlanta
Dragway speed record with a 329.34-mph pass in his first-round
win over Scott Weis. Bernstein also made it past Cory McClenathan,
but went up in smoke against David Baca in the semis.
Credit
Jim Head with the save of the weekend. In his final qualifying
pass, while attempting to break back into the 16-car field,
Head slipped out of the groove and experienced a sudden,
top-end turn toward the wall, but somehow managed to wrestle
his Stratus-bodied flopper back in line without making
contact. Head the owner owed Head the driver a pat on the
back for that one!
“I
was hoping to be able to live up to the nickname (The Spoiler)
the guys gave me a few weeks ago,” David Baca said
after losing to Doug Kalitta in the Atlanta final. Nevertheless,
Baca did manage to spoil the days of Doug Herbert, Morgan
Lucas, and Brandon Bernstein on the way to his second career
Top Fuel final.
PARTING SHOT
Tommy
Johnson Jr. lights ‘em up as he heads toward the
sunset in Friday night’s qualifying session. Johnson
qualified third and made it past Gary Densham on Sunday,
but fell to Robert Hight in round two.
