It's been awhile since I've done a personal blog on here. The main reason is, well, I haven't had much to talk about. I had about a month off of races, so there wasn't much of interest for the readers of this blog. I just got back from Indy, so now I have a ton to write about!
I've been looking forward to this year's U.S. Nationals since I pulled out of O'Reilly Raceway Park last year. It really is the biggest, most competitive, most fun race in the country, maybe even the world. The car counts are huge and there are always legends and usually a few celebrities in attendance.
Thursday morning and afternoon was spent in the car, as I had a 6 hour drive to Indianapolis. When I got to the track, I spent most of the time hanging out and helping to get everything ready for the race weekend. The Big Go was my sixth race working with Brandon Booher and the AB Construction Top Alcohol Dragster team. They've been doing really well this year, so I was expecting another great finish.
The schedule for Indy is not the same as all the other NHRA national events. For TAD, we get 1 qualifying pass on Friday, 2 on Saturday, another on Sunday morning, then 1st round of eliminations on Sunday evening. There weren't really any highlights or lowlights during qualifying, so I'll skip over that. The real excitement came when we found out who we would be facing first round: Marty Thacker. If you're not familiar with the name, he's a two-time Indy winner, the defending event champion, and a multi-time Division 3 champion. Oh yeah, he's also the guy we lost to in the Norwalk final round.
To make a long story short, we got the win over Marty, 5.45 to Thacker's 5.48. The fact that a relatively new team can beat a driver that's been driving and winning since the 90's is a statement. The car shut off right after the 1,000ft mark, so Brandon could hear Marty on his tail. We had won the battle, with hopes to win the war. As the team headed down the return road back to the pits, we stopped to watch the Chase Copeland-Matt Cummings matchup. Copeland ran 5.27 in qualifying and Cummings ran in the 5.60s. The winner of this matchup would be the next victim of the Booher Racing machine. Fortunately for us, Chase dropped cylinders and lost, so we would race Matt in E2.
The reason for the car shutting off in E1 was still elusive, so our goal for the night was to find out why. The crew was up until 4:30 am on Monday morning, making changes and trying to to find the problem. They were back at it at 8 am and continued working until just before E2. We had lots of help, including the Cantrell Brothers. guys from the Peen-Rite/Maddern Racing team, and even a couple Top Fuel crew chiefs. Their help was very important to us and was appreciated very much.
We got the car started and were pretty confident about our chances in the next round. We rolled up to the lanes, prepared to be moving on to the semifinals. As Brandon pulled through the waterbox and began his burnout, Matt Cummings just sat with the car running. He didn't start his burnout until Brandon started backing up. Once he was backed up, he didn't pre-stage until after Brandon fully staged. In my opinion, Matt was either being rude and unsportsman-like, or he's a bad driver. He finally staged, the tree dropped, and they were off. When the scoreboards lit up, the win light was in our lane! Brandon ran 5.44 to Matt's 5.46, which was a big shock. We got the car hooked up to the tow vehicle and headed back to the pits to get ready for the semifinals against Duane Shields.
I was relatively confident that Brandon would pull out the win, as I should be. In the end, Duane got the win. Brandon tree'd him on the line, leaving earlier by .029. According to announcer Alan Reinhart, Brandon lost by 2-3 feet at the finish line, about a blink of an eye was Duane's margin of victory. When we got to the car in the shut down area, we found that a broken injector nozzle ended our day. The nozzle sprays fuel into the engine. When the engine didn't get that fuel, it leaned out and torched a hole in the #2 cylinder as well as the block. Despite the loss and engine damage, Brandon made racing history. His 5.42 pass was not only his career best, it was also the quickest pass by a converter car. It's so impressive what Brandon and his dad Aaron have done with their car over the past two years.
Bill Reichert ended up getting the U.S. Nationals TAD trophy this year. I had a great time and the team still did a great job. Once we got the car back to the pits and the thrashing slowed down, my dad and I went to watch the finals, really the only spectating that I did over the weekend. After that we packed up and headed back home to Ohio, arriving around midnight.
I really want to thank Brandon Booher for everything that he's done to support and promote me and my ventures. Whether it's NVW Motorsports Promotion or Top Alcohol News, he's always gotten the name out to the racing world. I'm so proud to be a (tiny) part of his team and plan on being there when he hoists his first NHRA Wally.
Thanks for reading my latest blog entry. For complete results from the U.S. Nationals, visit the Top Alcohol News site. We'll have an event wrap-up and probably a few other stories online during the week.
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