While the tuners
were throwing more of everything into their engines in the staging
lanes, the next pair featured #2 Mark Malde and #15 Mike Chrisman.
Malde
was out first and never looked back.
Chrisman's car
suffered the same fate it did on its previous runs, early tire
smoke. It would be the only car in the round to not hook up.
Malde
clocked a nice clean 6.252 at 228.83 for the win.
Reverend
Cack gave the crew a nitro blessing.
Pair three pitted
the #1 qualifier and heavy favorite, Jim Murphy and the #16 car
of Rick Rogers.
Rogers
left first by a full tenth leaving Murphy flatfooted.
Rogers stepped
up a ton with a 6.072 at 240.51 to move to round two. What a
difference a day makes!
Try as he did,
Murphy didn't have enough to catch Rogers. Between a poor light
and a failure to improve on Friday's performance, his 6.151 at
214.84 dashed his hopes for a fifth March Meet win right out
of the gate.
Next
out was #4 Rick Williamson and #13 James Day.
This
was over before it started - Day went red by .060 handing the
win to Williamson.
Nonetheless,
Day hung it out to half track staying right with the CBS racing
car.
Williamson
clicked it early to a 5.992 at 231.66.
Pair
five was #5 Brendan Murry and #12 Howard Haight.
Both
cars left together but Haight much harder.
Murry
hung in until just before half track when Haight's big hemi took
charge.
Howard moved
to round two with a 5.954 at 241.87 while Murry pulled the chute
early to a 7.008 at just 120.80.
Next pair was
#6 Mike McClennan and #12 Adam Sorokin but all had learned by
this point that qualifying positions and lane choice made little
difference under great conditions.
Sorokin
was out first with McClennan right on his heals.
McClennan
had caught and passed Sorokin by half track.
Still ahead coming
to the 1000' mark, McClennan's engine started to go away allowing
Sorokin to start pulling ahead.
Right
at the 1000' clocks the blue car experienced an explosion and
fire.
Into the traps
Sorokin's ride started eating some pistons as well but he hung
on for the win with a 6.03 at 230.65 while McClennan coasted
through with a 6.257 at 190.43. Had Fuller's fuse been 300' longer
this would have been one hell of a drag race.
Brad Thompson
in his first round of racing in the High Speed Motorsports car
drew his close friend, Rick McGee in the Tedford & McGee
car. McGee had lane choice and went to the less favored right
side.
McGee
got drilled at the tree (.046 to .120) and was left to play some
major catch up.
McGee ran out
of real estate and Brad's 5.988 at 233.38 held off his much quicker
5.927 at 254.23.
