Last Ditch Qualifying At The Mile-Highs



They said it was going to rain.  It didn’t.  They said it would be brutally hot. It wasn’t.  They said the track would be tricky.  It was.  Oh, how it was – but not for everyone.  Some of the tuners – far too few as far as the fans were concerned – absolutely figured out Bandimere Speedway and got their cars down the track.

When it comes to tough races the Mopar Mile-High Nationals has rarely figured in the discussion.  We have no clue why that is.  Maybe tradition alone has resulted in many considering the U.S. Nationals the toughest race of the year.  But, when you get right down to it, there just isn’t a more difficult race to win than this one.  Everything is stacked against the competitors, everything from the altitude (an uncorrected 5,800 feet on the starting line) to the weather.  Atmospheric conditions at Bandimere can run the gamut from cool and breezy to beastly hot and humid – and it’s more often the latter than the former.

Does anyone but the tuners remember how much effort has gone into making this race track unique?  It’s rarely stated and probably forgotten by almost everyone, but this facility actually has a cooling system built into the track.  Cooling water circulates underneath the concrete launching pad for about the first 160 feet of the racing surface, and it helps, oh how it helps.  The early portion of the track may be 15 degrees cooler than the balance of the pad, and it makes a significant difference.  As Ed “The Ace” McCulloch put it, “You can step on the car on the line, and then it’ll run better when it gets on down there.  Without that cooler track you’d have to pooch it off the line and then try to recover to run good on the other end.  That’s a lot tougher.”

A lot of people came out to watch today’s show, a lot of them.  The pits were jammed, at least through the fuel car area of the facility.  As fabulous as this place is it has a “ground problem,” i.e., there just isn’t enough of the level stuff.  The result is that the Pro Stock teams are pitted a long way from the main grandstands and the fuel cars, with foot traffic being far lighter than it might normally be.  The Pro Stock bikes are now pitted on the side of the down sloped staging lanes, offering the fans their best shot at an easy autograph, something that in previous years required quite a trek.

The Mopar people must be beside themselves this evening.  Dodges reign supreme in both Pro Stock and Funny Car.  That Allen Johnson is the quickest of the gas-burners is no surprise, but Matt Hagan’s being atop the flopper list is.  Well, kinda.  But, there’s something we all know about the endeavor we’re so devoted to – the good times can come to an end in less time then it takes to read this sentence.  Johnson might spin the tires for six feet and be toast against Bob Yonke.  Hagan’s guys might bolt two grams too much weight on the primaries of the clutch and he’ll smoke the tires against Jack Wyatt, who took almost 90 seconds to reach the finish line for his one recorded qualifying effort.

Don Garlits said it better than we can.  Anything can happen in drag racing, and usually does.  That’s what’s going to make Sunday so interesting.  Anything can happen. Anyone can win.  In a sport where there’s no chance of recovery if there’s a miscue behind the wrenches or behind the wheel, anyone really can win.  Jack Wyatt, Mile-High Nationals champion?  Who are we to suggest it can’t happen?



A lot of drag racing fans are sophisticated race observers who understand that the last qualifying session is rarely the best.  By that point on a race weekend many teams are actively prepping for Sunday and may only be testing the starting line when they come up for the session.  Conditions are usually less than perfect.  By then there’s been some oil down, or the sun’s liable to be beating on the track like Joe Satriani on a Gibson.  But the final session of Pro Stock produced a ton of sixes and in Top Fuel there were a host of threes.  After a relatively slow start the day ended with a proverbial bang, and that’s the way it should be.

Based on the way Jeg Coughlin and Jason Line ran this afternoon, Johnson could have his hands full tomorrow.  Jeggie’s ninety-eight-one and Line’s ninety-nine-three demonstrate that a ninety-six-six may not be enough in eliminations.  And let’s not forget that Edwards guy, sitting fourth with a seven flat with a two.

PGA golfer Danny Gruninger failed to qualify, which wasn’t much of a surprise for a part-time runner, but seeing Greg Stanfield’s name on the DNQ list was a surprise.  Seeing him out-run by Erica Enders was nothing short of, well, shocking.

James Day, whose team reportedly fired and shut off their engine no less than eight times yesterday before discovering that the rotors in the supercharger had been installed backwards, finally lumbered into the Funny Car show in 5.228 seconds.  Paul Lee also got Jim Dunn’s car down the track to make the show but really, with just 16 cars on the grounds all one had to do was go from Point A to Point B in less than an hour to be considered qualified.

How dedicated is Steve Chrisman?  His rig reportedly broke down on I-25 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but the Californian shelled out $2,800 to have the rig towed to Denver.  Man, that had to hurt.  But that one guy Bob Frey said would be disappointed?  That turned out to be Rob Passey from Salt Lake City.  He was about two seconds slower than the bump – which was no record-breaker with Terry Haddock’s 4.356.

A very close friend of Steve Johnson’s said, “He runs better when he’s broke and starving.”  It must be true because Johnson stepped up to the Number 2 spot with a 7.246, but Michael Philips remains Number 1.  Karen Stoffer and Jim Underdahl appear capable of winning it, but then again there are about seven or eight others who could also be holding the trophy tomorrow afternoon.

We can’t predict the outcome, but what we can predict is a good race on Sunday.  The conditions are ripe for it, and the cutoff point for the Countdown to 10 appears to be just moments away.  There’s little doubt that some competitors have reached the desperation point.  The question then becomes, can they overcome their desperation, keep their eyes on the prize, and get it done when it counts the most?