NOTICIAS DE SAN ANTONIO
Words by Chris Martin
Photos by Jeff Burk and Richard Burk
I love to watch history in the making. Drag racing history. I loved attending the ’67 Orange County Manufacturers Funny Car race and the PDA Meet at Lions. ’72 Tulsa. ’75 Ontario. ’93 Topeka … all races with super significance and, in my best Jack Paar imitation – I kid you not – The doings at the 2006 IHRA Amalie Oil Texas Nationals filled the bill. Really, dude!
And cutting to the chase, consider the following within the backdrop of the previously stated.
At San Antonio Raceway Park, Funny Car firsts flew like puppies in a tornado. Por ejemplo:
Beginning Friday’s first session, Bob Gilbertson’s Autolite 2005 Stratus and Gary Densham’s Racebricks Monte Carlo were the first pair of nitro Funny Cars out on any IHRA pad since 1992, the North American Nationals at Epping, NH, to be exact. Densham shut off early and Gilbertson ripped a so-so 5.027, but at 300.06 mph, the first 300-mph Funny Car pass in association history. (See how this works?) Admittedly, this is a tad tongue in cheek, but what the hell!
In the very next pair, Frank Pedregon pushed the Von Dutch 2004 Stratus to the association’s first Funny Car four, a 4.843/297.16, a time that clubbed Cruz Pedregon. And if you wanna really split hairs, the association’s first 4.8-second run.
No tears for “the Cruiser” though. That night he rammed the Advanced Auto Monte Carlo to maybe the best pass of the weekend, a totally unexpected 4.765/321.12, a time that would IHRA’s best ever Funny Car shot. Aaayyyyaaannnd the first 4.7 by an IHRA flopper.
Yep, there was a first 4.90: Gilbertson improved the next day with a 4.973/299.32.
OTHER FIRSTS OF THE NON-FUNNY CAR VARIETY
The Pro Modified bubble was an all-time record 6.195 with seven cars in the 6.0's.
The best Pro Modified speeds were turned in when Rick DiStefano logged a 237.50 in Al Billes’s ’53 Corvette and Scott Cannon Jr. hammered a 237.34 in his wild Pontiac GTO -- all coming in qualifying.
And, in the strangest turn of affairs of the whole cotton-pickin’ meet, three superior Pro Mod passes were tossed, likely due to an electronic malfunction of some sort. In Saturday’s first Pro Mod session and in succession Harold Martin’s ACDelco Grand Am hit a 6.07 (no speed), followed by Thomas Patterson’s 6.099 in his ’41 Willys and Mike Janis’s sub-record 6.021 in the Eaton/Hammer & Cutler 2006 Chevy Cobalt.
The first hint that something was wrong was that only one of this trio had a speed register on the board, that being Patterson with a stratospheric 494-mph reading -- a speed that I believe would’ve been the first leg of a new IHRA Pro Mod speed mark. Officials pulled the plug on qualifying for about 15 minutes and determined that the incremental times simply would not have added up to 6.0's causing the numbers to be cut.