8th Amalie North American Nationals
Sep. 5-7th, 2003, Epping NH
Notes |
Results
NATIONALS NOTEBOOK:
Clay Millican and Team Werner score for the 7th time in nine IHRA races so far this season in Top Fuel serving up another dominating performance. Millican’s team resets both ends of the New England Dragway track record during qualifying at 4.604 secs 318.54 mph before blitzing the field again on Sunday. Millican is never really challenged during the event and easily beats Bruce Litton for the event championship. That marked the 5th time this season that Millican and Litton have faced off in an IHRA final.
Defending 2002 IHRA World Pro Mod Champion Shannon Jenkins notches his first win of the season driving his nitrous-injected Chevy Camaro. Jenkins takes out the supercharged Corvette driven by 2001 series champion Mike Janis in the final round. Janis runs top speed of the meet at 228.83 in the final round trying to reel Jenkins in but to no avail.
For the second race in a row Billy Harper paces the Pro Mod field driving his nitrous-injected Dodge Viper. Harper runs a career best 6.186 secs during the final qualifying session, which holds up for low ET of the meet. Harper’s car however shakes its tires in round one on Sunday and he is beaten by #16 qualifier Roy Wasko.
Canada’s Robbie Atchison wins again in Alcohol Funny Car driving the super consistent London, Ontario-based Erickson Manufacturing-sponsored Chevy powered Firebird. With the win, his 5th of the season, Atchison moves to within serious striking distance of the 2003 IHRA Series Championship. Atchison outguns his closest points rival Mark Thomas in a tell tale final round, 5.816 secs to 5.871 secs. Robbie had set both low ET (5.783 secs) and top speed (243.50 mph) in earlier action.
AFC class racing includes a wild incident for East-coast based racer Charlie Gambino who has a major engine explosion during the third round of class qualifying. Gambino runs a 6.068 secs at 232.13 mph but that comes with a cost as the explosion disintegrates the Olds Achieva body and sends debris sailing high in the air. “The Godfather” gets the car stopped safely and is uninjured.
Ford racer Carl Baker climbed back to the #1 position in overall Hooters Pro Stock points with a strong event performance. Baker, driving his Ohio-based Summit Racing Mercury Cougar, wins the event over Frank Gugliotta’s Ford Mustang when Frank went .015 red in the final round. Baker’s win is his third of the ‘03 season to go with his wins at Virginia and Grand Bend. Gugliotta, who won the prestigious Sunoco Race Fuels Pro Stock Shootout at Norwalk two weeks earlier, makes a major move in Pro Stock points. His runner-up finish vaults him from 5th to 2nd in the very tight and competitive IHRA PS points battle.
Driving the Tim Hortons-sponsored dragster, Canadian Top Fuel racer Todd Paton had a much-improved performance at IHRA Epping. That includes a 4.916 secs (to qualify 4th) and a 4.886 secs run in round one to defeat Don Sosenska. Paton’s second round 5.786 secs however proves to be no match for eventual winner Millican’s 4.676 secs.
Another Canadian racer who ran well at the event was Jordan Station, Ontario’s Carl Spiering who had his best finish of the season so far in Pro Mod driving the Eaton Cutler-Hammer-sponsored ‘57 Chevy. The “Big Dog”, who qualified 11th at 6.281 secs 224.71 mph, beat Carl Bullock and Steve Salvadore on Sunday before a tardy RT in the semi final round cost him a potential trip to the championship final. In that match-up, eventual winner Shannon Jenkins ran a winning 6.477 secs at 218.07 mph to beat Spiering’s much quicker (but later) 6.374 secs at 219.56 mph.
Canadian driver Charlie Kenopic (from Renfrew, ON) just missed winning his second IHRA event of the season when he placed runner-up in Super Rod (9.90). The ACDelco Canadian Nationals champion had a red-light foul start to Glen Ferguson’s Ford Maverick in the championship title bout.
