44th Nightfire Nationals, Firebird Raceway, Boise, Idaho, August 12, 2015—With “High Speed Motorsports” having recently ended the “Bartone Bros.” unprecedented 22-round win streak in NHRA Heritage Series Top Fuel competition, the rest of the class has smelled blood in the water and have begun sharking. To that end, at this weekend’s Pepsi Nightfire Nationals in Boise, veteran nitro racer Jim Murphy and his “WW2” dragster are set to pounce on a full field of front-engine fuelers.
“I think that (High Speed driver) Bill Dunlap winning Bowling Green gave everyone in the Nostalgia Top Fuel class a glimmer of hope,” Murphy explained. “It has been apparent that Tony Bartone has completely dominated our class for the last year and a half. High Speed and the Champion Speed Shop have been getting closer and closer and I believe we can now be part of that group.”
Earlier this summer at Bakersfield’s “Saturday Night Nitro,” an after-hours test run with a new crew chief validated Murphy’s claim about rejoining the Top Fuel elite. That event saw the debut of the collaboration between Murphy and an infamous tuner he raced with during the ‘70s Funny Car wars, Roland Leong a/k/a “the Hawaiian.” After midnight, the WW2 fueler laid down the quickest run of the event, a spectacular 5.67 ¼-mile elapsed time at a mere 237 mph, with Murphy shutting off at 1000’.
That stunning run set the stage for Boise: When asked about if there was anything to prove this week, the “Hawaiian” was cagey and contrite. “The goal is just to get more runs and data and learn what I think this car wants,” Leong said. “I tell everyone I work for, I only know how to do it one run at a time and it takes a lot of laps to figure things out.”
If Murphy and Leong want to go rounds—whether in pursuit of “data” or the actual Nightfire Top Fuel title, they will have to fight through a full quota of competitors. Besides Bartone and Dunlap, among those entered in the Boise’s 8-car eliminator are sophomore hot-shoe Dusty Green, March Meet runner-up Adam Sorokin in the Champion Speed Shop small-block Chevrolet fueler, fan-favorite Brendan Murry, Rick Williamson in the “Team Craig” rail, and Ron August, Jr. in the “Forever Young” slingshot. All of these teams are hoping to upend the defending series and event champion Bartone, despite Murphy and Leong’s modest pleas to the contrary.
“Right now we’re not trying to upend anyone,” Roland continued, downplaying his notorious take-no-prisoners competitive ethos. “Hopefully the day will come when they will be trying to upend us.”
“We are still in the experimental stage with the tune-up,” Murphy added, echoing Leong’s sentiments. “But we now know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel—and it’s not a train coming back at us.”
44th Annual Pepsi Nightfire Nationals “Idaho’s Premiere Racing Event”
August 13-16
Fri., August 14
Nitro Qualifying: 7:45 pm
Concludes: 10 pm
Sat., August 15
Nitro Qualifying: 2 pm, 7:45 pm
Concludes: 10:30 pm
Sun., August 16
Nitro Eliminations: 2 pm
Concludes: 9 pm
More on Heritage Series Top Fuel and the AA/FD here:
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