In a lapse of judgment the Famoso safety crew allowed Walls to make a single. When Walls launched, the Nova headed right for the parked Vette and only a lucky driving job prevented disaster. Randy should know better, so should the track safety crew.

Words by Darr Hawthorne
Photos by Darr Hawthorne and Bryan Ellis
5/7/04

he Fuel & Fire Spectacular at historic Famoso Raceway lived up to its name, albeit on a smaller scale than I had imagined. Getting together any combination of Funny Cars, let alone 34 alky, nitro and gas floppers at a local drag strip is a tough to promise to fulfill today. There were about 800 spectators throughout the long day.

Promoter John Keigley delivered fun, competitive racing with a bunch of California Independent Funny Car Association cars, Nostalgia Nitro Funny Cars from the Knights of Nitro, a couple of modern fuel coupes and 300 inch dragsters in testing modes.

The Nostalgia Nitro cars ran old style match races and brought back lots of memories of days gone by, especially under the lights.

DRO’s Nostalgia editor Jeff “Mr. Pammy” Utterback in his first match race ran a best of 6.693/215.46 mph, laying down the best runs ever for Jeff Gaynor’s ‘70 Barracuda tuned by nitro veteran Mike Demarest. Utterback made straight passes and looks to be ready for upcoming Goodguys competition.