First things first.  Were you at O’Reilly Raceway Park today for the first day, or evening, of Pro qualifying?  Well, you should have been, and there’s still time to get here.  Not tonight, but Saturday, Sunday or even Monday.  But that’s not our point.  If you had been here the first thing you would have noticed…  “Noticed,” now there’s improper word usage if we’ve ever seen it.  The first thing you would have seen are the massive, and very steep grandstands on the east side of the track.  They are awesome.  Good job, NHRA.  You’ve given your fans one of the best seats the sport has to offer, and we were pleased to see that a very nice crowd was in attendance to experience this new amenity.

First things first.  Were you at O’Reilly Raceway Park today for the first day, or evening, of Pro qualifying?  Well, you should have been, and there’s still time to get here.  Not tonight, but Saturday, Sunday or even Monday.  But that’s not our point.  If you had been here the first thing you would have noticed…  “Noticed,” now there’s improper word usage if we’ve ever seen it.  The first thing you would have seen are the massive, and very steep grandstands on the east side of the track.  They are awesome.  Good job, NHRA.  You’ve given your fans one of the best seats the sport has to offer, and we were pleased to see that a very nice crowd was in attendance to experience this new amenity.

Friday is more than the first day of pro qualifying.  It’s also when the Westcott Family Challenge – oh, wait, we’d better call it by its official moniker – that’s when the Hemi Challenge takes place.  What the heck, it might as well be the Westcott Family Challenge, because in recent years the father and son duo of “Charlies”, junior and senior, have absolutely and completely dominated the action – and 2009 was no different.  Well, it was slightly different because Junior’s engine swallowed a valve in a losing effort – so Senior simply dominated in his place.

The field was a bit lighter than usual for the Challenge, but there were three reasons for that.  Even men racing 60s vintage cars costing in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million dollars (that just sounds bigger than writing $250,000)) haven’t been immune to the recent economic situation, so that kept some of the usual West Coast runners at home.  The second factor is, well, a couple of the more well known regulars have suffered some legal setbacks and are, shall we say, “away for a while.”  The third factor is unquestionably the Westcotts.  If it were you, how often would you want to haul your car to Indy only to be humiliated by a car carrying one tenth of the chrome yours does, and a paint job what’s, well, not exactly a show-stopper?

There’s something else that needs to be mentioned in conjunction with Charlie Westcott, Jr’s Number 1 qualifying effort of 8.491 seconds – this guy is bangin’ a manual transmission boys and girls!  It’s not one of those “simple” automatics.  And he drives it like, well, like the late Ronnie Sox handled all of those 4-speed Plymouths back in the day.

After his son’s engine suffered internal damage Charlie Westcott, Sr’s engine did the same, necessitating a complete change prior to the final round.  This is a far more difficult task with a car with fixed fenders, but they managed to get it done in time for the car it to make the starting line against David Barton’s Cuda.  Now, what happened to Barton in that finale is open to conjecture, but one thing we know for certain – you ain’t winnin’ no races with 0.498 second Reaction Times – and Barton didn’t.  Charlie, Sr, kept the family honor in tact with an 8.626 – which was a ton off his best eliminations elapsed time of 8.541.

Other than the venue itself, how could you tell this was Friday at Indy?  Because of the number of professional entries.  Thirty Pro Stocks ran this evening, from Mike Edwards 6.624-best to Johnny Gray’s troubled 12.601.  The motorcycle field was almost as stout, with 25 two-wheelers headed by the constantly improving Hector Arana’s 6.985.  Only Arana and Andrew Hines ran in the sixes, but tomorrow’s another day –and it’ll feature the running of the Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle.

While there may have been only 18 hopefuls in Funny Car, John Force Racing entries occupied three of the top four spots, with Robert Hight on the pole with a 4.107, Mike Neff second with a 4.113 and Ashley Force Hood fourth with a 4.138.  Sandwiched into third place was Cruz Pedregon.  Just for the record, Force himself was seventh.  Top Fuel showed resurgence with 21 entries headed by Indy resident Larry Dixon’s 3.850.  Part-timer Hot Rod Fuller was third with a 3.888 – a strong performance from a car and driver who aren’t regulars on the tour this year.

Could we have told you more? Of course we could have – but that’s why the hard-working staff at CompetitionPlus.com has assembled a comprehensive event notebook.  Not to worry, we’ll have more tomorrow, then again Sunday and, oh yeah, all of the racing from Labor Day Monday.

 

 

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