Words and Photos by Bryan Ellis
4/5/04

“Rock me in the evening and roll me all night long”
– The Fabulous Thunderbirds

as Vegas is an all night town; still I don’t think the Goodguys staff and LVMS crew had planned on this shindig lasting till the wee hours of Sunday morning. They did a superlative job considering the weekend overall. High car counts is always a great start, but the track was oiled much more than I was accustomed to at any Vintage Racing Association (VRA) event. Even with a laid back atmosphere these drag racers run hard with record and parts-breaking performance at times. Then strangely on Friday night a natural phenomenon unlike any ever seen in drag racing descended on the strip, not rain or wind this time but GRASSHOPPERS by the billions! I’m not kidding, they were flying off the slicks during burnouts and green elongated splats were left on the track surface following a pass. The mobile brush and vacuum crew were hard at it from starting line to the shut down area as race crews cleaned the bugs off the front of their cars in the pits. The “bug catcher” on several gassers necessitated a pest removal. I will admit I laughed when I pictured the animated movie “It’s A Bug’s Life” and “let’s ride” if you know what I mean!

Jack Harris led Top Fuel (A Field) with low e.t. of 5.867 and reset the clocks with a final round victory of 5.839 & 255.48 mph! Sean Bellemeur followed suit in the “Master Cam” Top Fuel (B Field) low e.t. 6.072 at 242.19 mph! Mike Adams in Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car took all with a string of brilliant reaction times, climbing out of the seventh position (in an eight car field) nailing DRO’s very own Nostalgia editor Jeff Utterback at the line in the final!

A real treat during Friday night qualifying was without a doubt the nitro cars, and if ever there should be a header fire contest for Nostalgia Top Fuel, Jim Murphy would likely be champ. Unlike the strong running WW2 race team, Murphy could only slip into Top Fuel (A field) in the number eight spot with a 6.244 at 229.70 mph.

“Nitro Thunder” was still without paint and folks were penning their names on the 250 mph tin. Jack “The Sheriff” Harris gives the thumbs-up, “I think we have this hot rod figured out, so the wheelie bars are now off the car and we’re adding some ballast up front.”

If you’re planning on going front motor Top Fuel racing, you’ll eventually have to deal with the Sheriff and that’s not always easy, at least that’s how it is out west. Pete Kaiser in the John Eirich owned “Ground Zero” entry fell short in round one to Jack Harris with a 6.006 at 240.98 mph; Kaiser’s .445 reaction, a .105 quicker than Harris, just didn’t make up the difference with a 6.119 at 225.63 mph attempt.