20th Carquest Northern Nationals
Stanton, MI (July 27-29th, 2001)
Notes|
Results | Photos
NATIONALS NOTEBOOK:
Clay Millican stretches out his overall Top Fuel points lead by recording his third consecutive IHRA circuit victory. Millican qualifies Peter Lehman-owned Werner Enterprises dragster on the pole (4.749 secs) and then easily takes out the 8-car field. Millican denies Jim Head his first career IHRA Top Fuel title when he beats him in the final round. Defending IHRA World Champion Paul Romine has top speed at 310.48 mph but loses a 4.855 to 4.918 secs decision to Head in the semi final round.
Top Fuel racing sees “Pontiac” Jack Ostander return to competition driving a brand new dragster. Ostrander qualifies 6th but then loses in round one to Jim Head. Ostrander runs two cars at Mid-Michigan event -- his second car, driven by Louie Allison, also falls in round one at the hands of Millican.
Nitro Harley racing is not completed at Mid-Michigan. In a weird development class riders lobby to IHRA that shutdown area is unsafe for the class after numerous riders experience high speed wobble during the event. Strange part is this decision to curtail class racing comes immediately prior to the final round (ie: all three rounds of qualifying and first two rounds of eliminations had been completed). Safety concerns is cited as the reason for the decision. The scheduled final round between Steve Stordeur and Ray Price will be run off in 3 weeks time during upcoming IHRA Mopar World Nationals at Norwalk.
Pro Mod qualifying on Saturday includes a nasty incident involving Connecticut's Sal Passarelli. Passarelli’s supercharged ‘69 Nova explodes a supercharger in the lights and that produces a disastrous domino effect. His engine over revs, kicks the rods out and set the car on fire. Passarelli
is unable to get the parachutes to deploy properly and runs off the end of the race track at very high speed ending up in a farmers field some 500 feet past the sand trap. Rescue workers have trouble getting to the scene. Passarelli suffers serious burns to his hands, knee and feet and is airlifted to hospital for treatment.
Fred Hahn and Jim Oddy show signs of coming back to life in Pro Mod with a solid event performance in the Summit Racing Corvette. Fred Hahn makes the final round but once there cannot handle the Trussell Motorsports nitrous-injected ’63 Corvette driven by talented Ed Hoover. Hahn’s car shakes it’s tires immediately which allows Hoover to skip to a uncontested
6.339 secs at 222.40 mph victory.
Pro Mod racing produces another all sub 6.4 secs field with a bump spot of 6.371 secs. Points leader Mike Janis flexes his muscles again qualifying low and setting low ET (6.279 secs) and top speed (228.42 mph) driving his Jan-Cen/Weber’s supercharged ’63 Split. Janis is however decisively handled by Hoover in the semi final: 6.322 secs to 6.409 secs. Pro Mod final once again produces IHRA’s much desired nitrous-oxide versus supercharger match-up (the fifth time in six races this season that has happened).
Pro Stock racing features an upset winner as Ohio’s Brian Gahm scores driving his flashy new 2001 Ford Mustang. Gahm’s win is his second of his IHRA career -- his first came in the Pro Mod class back in 1994. Gahm beats out Tommy Lee in another final round battle of Fords. Gahm’s better RT is the difference as he wins 6.709 to 6.701 secs. Points leader Gene Wilson has low ET of the meet at 6.619 secs in his Cougar. Wilson is however apparently distracted big time in round one and his .853 RT is no match for number 16 qualifier Chris Holbrook who beats him 6.843 secs to 6.833 secs. Holbrook, who won the 1999 IHRA Pro Stock World title, goes on to his best showing in quite some time placing in the semi final round.
Wisconsin’s Jeff Schefus makes a little bit of Top Dragster history as he guides his driver Randy Fraker to the quickest run in IHRA class history at 6.045 secs to pace that field. Schefus/Fraker then win Saturday’s night’s Lenco Top Dragster Quick 8 Shootout with their Mopar-powered entry. The Lizzard Race Engines Top Sportsman Q8 title goes to Kenny Rucker’s nitrous-injected ’63 Corvette. Rucker, who also won at Virginia this season singled for the title when Harry Rockwell could not make the call.
Laurie Cannister’s bid to win her first career IHRA Funny Car title falls just short when she loses to Jimmy Rector in a final round battle of Chevy Camaros. Cannister ran a string to 5.9 secs runs throughout the event but slowed to a 6.122 in the final. Rector had qualified his Holbrook-sponsored
Camaro on the pole at 5.861 secs (low ET). Mark Thomas set top speed in the class at 242.10 mph. IHRA’s Funny Car class, which normally draws 25+ cars to it’s national events sees only 16 cars show to do battle at the Mid-Michigan event.
Pro Stock racing attracts some new machines to the circuit including Mark Hay’s new 2001 Pontiac Grand-Am and David Jenkins in a 2001 Mustang.
Hay, from Iowa, runs a 6.747 secs to make eliminations but Jenkins has handling problems in his new Tennessee-based Ford and his 6.980 secs best is a DNQ.
The gruelling 48-car Top Dragster and Top Sportsman winners are Ohio’s “Stone Cold” Michael DiDomenico who wins for the second IHRA race in a row in TD and Jerry Albert who wins over Tim Molnar in TS.
