Low ET, Top Speed. New Series ET Record, Won the event and Won the WFA 2015 Points Championship
“Decimated the competition” and “dominating performance” were two of the posts made about us on FaceBook after the Halloween Havoc Western Fuel Altereds (“WFA”) race at Wild Horse Park in Chandler, AZ. We set Low ET at a 6.38, Top Speed at 216.10, set a new WFA ET record with the 6.38 (breaking the old 6.58 record that we had held for 3 years), won the event and won the WFA Season Points Championship. Yep, it was a good weekend!
This race was originally supposed to be an 8 car qualified field and 3 rounds of eliminations. However, a “haboob” (giant sandstorm) rolled through the track Friday afternoon, cancelling qualifying. This caused the race format to be changed to a “Modified Shootout” where there would be one qualifying round, then a competition round with the quickest 2 winners from Round 2 advancing to the final round.
The Drag Racing Online Nostalgia Nitro Series was also supposed to be at this event, but that got cancelled in favor of a nitro funny car and nitro altered show. They ended up with only 3 nitro altereds and asked me to run against one of the nitro cars so as not to have a single car run. Although everyone probably thought that our alcohol powered car would get smoked by Jim Maroney’s 92% nitro powered car, we outran him with a 6.39 at 214 mph beating his 6.67 at 197 mph. That qualified us #1 in the WFA program, with the #2 qualifier quite a bit behind at 6.64. We then paired up against Rob Winefsky for the Competition Round and ran an even better 6.38 at 216 mph to defeat Rob’s 7.14 at 192 mph.
Our 6.38 put us in the final against Flagstaff’s Mitch Bowen who won his pairing with a 6.52 second ET. Bowen and his crew were pitted next to us and had to thrash hard on their car all weekend as they had parts breakage to contend with. We took the win in the final round with a 6.40 second ET to Bowen’s 6.63. A problem with the timing system prevented any speeds from being recorded.
The 6.38 second ET shattered the WFA Series ET record that we had held at 6.58 for over 3 years. That earned us bonus points towards the points championship. We maxed out the number of points available for qualifying by being quickest in both rounds and got the round win bonus for winning the race. Combine all that with good performances at the races earlier in the year and we won the 2015 WFA Points Championship by a comfortable margin.
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQo9Qw3AZCo – On-board video of the qualifying run where we were #1 at a 6.39 ET @ 214 mph
https://www.facebook.com/eric.hernandez.79069/videos/10206695668942271/ – Video from the grandstands of our Round 1 victory where we set Low ET/Top Speed and a new WFA record at a 6.38 ET @ 216 mph
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6JHcx2vlio – On-board video of the Final Round where we ran a 6.40 ET to win the event
Pictures:
Previous race pictures at our website – www.lylegreenberg.com
The track was hit by a giant sandstorm on Friday afternoon. Photo by James Powers
It ruined the carefully groomed track surface forcing cancellation of the remainder of the day’s racing. Photo Bob Snyder
Butch & Rick wait for the signal to fire it up for Round 1 against Jim Maroney. Photo by Chris Kaufman/Bad Rooster Images
Round 1 Burnout. Photo by Chris Kaufman/Bad Rooster Images
Final Round against Mitch Bowen just before half-track. Photo by Bob Snyder
Winners Circle pictures. Photos by Bob Snyder
Had to prove to everyone I wasn’t too old to climb up on the roll cage. Photo by Bob Snyder
