Event winner, Brent Jones.

Lost Creek Raceway is an NHRA eighth mile track sitting at 5,288 feet near Anaconda, Montana. On a typical high-elevation, blue-sky day, the view of snow-capped mountains compete with the near-by Anaconda Mining Company smokestack, built in 1919, that rises 585 feet into that big blue sky. It is one of the largest free-standing brick structures in the world and they say you could drive a jeep around the top rim.

On August 23, Lost Creek hosted the third annual "Rocky Mountain Invitational,” a heads-up between alcohol funny cars and nitrous outlaws. The alcohol cars are all members of the North West Funny Cars (thenwfc.com) and this weekend the group was represented by Fred Ray, Ray Williamson, David Spease, and Brent Jones. Hired gun Ken Kraus was sitting in for Williamson who had recent back surgery. NWFC member Mark Auguiar was not participating in the shootout but by all appearances had a successful test session.

Fred Ray has traded in his venerable Ford Tempo shell for this nostalgic '69 Nova.

The nitrous car everyone was talking about was a beautiful, early Camaro owned and driven by Shane Heintz and he happened to be paired with Jones first round. Traction problems for the Camaro allowed Jones' 4.90 to take him out. He wasn't the only one, as Jones' string of 4-second runs, including a 4.85, took him to the final where he beat Kraus driving Williamson's "Exotic Logic" car. Kraus ran a series of high fours and low fives and was the second fastest car in the invitational, therefore met Jones in the final.

In the interest of full disclosure, and as an excuse for not having round-by-round results, I must admit this writer crews for Brent Jones "Lawless Racing" entry and was a little busy all day.

NHRA TA/FC star Ken Kraus in Ray Williamson's Cutlass. Note the mining slag pile in the background. Lost Creek Raceway has Ambiance!

The car count at this race wasn't the biggest ever but the quality of cars made up for it. The carbon fiber screaming yellow Corvette pro-mod driven by Lee Frank was not part of the Invitational but made the only pass faster than Jones with a 4.75. Remember this is thin air, with the corrected density around 7000 feet.

After some track surface and re-paving problems in the past, Lost Creek was in the best shape anyone could remember. Track operators didn't stint on the VHT and some darn good 60 foot times resulted. Just off the concrete, there was some tire smoke and crossed up cars, conditions that may have favored the more consistent alcohol cars, which won 12 of the 16 contests.



The nitrous outlaw group was made up of Heintz, Ken Bohenek's GTO and the Novas of Kevin Delap and Joey Bauer.

All four North West Funny cars began the weekend with a display in downtown Anaconda, whee every Friday they have a car show, live music, and food vendors. There was a large crowd and many people said they'd never been to the track but might attend Saturday's race. And hopefully they did, because there was a lot of good hard, side-by-side racing with almost no attrition, but more than a few clouds of smoke in that big, blue sky.



Steve Wheat
funnycarcrew45@yahoo.com