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... AND BURN
Bruce, who already had won the $250 Doug Herbert Performance
Parts/Draglist.com Burnout Challenge in the first round, had his clutch
figured out for the next hit and promptly knocked Jonkman off the top
of the speed charts.
Lined up against Mike Adams in the "Blue Angels"
Corvette, Bruce left first, then went 6.474 at 186.20 mph to score the
Dodger Glenn Memorial award for low ET and top speed of the meet. Bruce
could have gone faster, though, as his "Zombie" became a real
fire 'Bird just before the 1,000-foot mark when the blower exploded.
"There was no warning; it didn't lay over; it didn't
pop; nothing," the Flint, MI-based driver recalled. "I just
felt my butt getting hot, then I could see the flames changing the color
of my gloves."
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| The blower in Rob Bruce's nitro-burning Firebird
split wide open in the fiery melee. |
Bruce said he deliberately steered the car into the left
guardwall in order to get it stopped. Adams said he also stopped nearby
and arrived within seconds to douse the burning fiberglass with an extinguisher
taken from a fire truck. About the same time, three crewmembers from
Rick Stambaugh's team -- Darren Kelly, Jason Liebenow, and Matt Stambaugh
-- who were towing back to the pits on the return road, jumped the wall
and helped pull Bruce to safety.
"I'm glad they were down there," Bruce said
before arriving at Stambaugh's trailer with a signed fragment of his
shattered supercharger. "It's good to know there are guys out here
willing to help you like that."
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