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Auto Club Raceway at Pomona
This
was the premier of AHDRA racing on hallowed drag racing grounds. Maus was unable to be there due to work
constraints (but she’d fly in for Vegas), so there are absolutely NO
pictures available for this event.
Being
a Friday-Saturday event, no nighttime track lighting, and start time
restrictions, the schedule had to be jockeyed and rushed to accommodate
quicker turnarounds and qualifying was limited to two rounds.
Chip
qualified #4 with an 11.543 in SEP – way to go, Chip! On race day Sunday, he won his first
round and made it into the “afternoon show”. In the 2nd round, he had to
race Dean Druschel who is a champ in every
sense of the word and amazing on reaction times. Chip lost on a holeshot
to Dean – way to go, Dean! It was
a great race, but Chip’s .087 reaction time
could not compete against Dean’s awesome .005 reaction time!!
It
would be a different story in ET.
The round-robin morning eliminations were 3 rounds of grueling
back-to-back competition and Chip pulled the win light every time!! The round robin brought the field of
over 60 bikes to a field of 8 to get Chip into the afternoon show!
It’s
rare we make the “afternoon show” in both fields!!!
For
the afternoon show in ET, Chip’s first opponent was our friend Roberta
Seaman. It was too close for
comfort when Roberta ran a bit too fast with her 10.832 on her 10.85
dial-in, breaking out and awarding Chip the win and putting him in the
semi-finals in ET with his 11.666 run on his 11.60 dial-in.
Semi-Finals
fueled more excitement. Our
opponent for this round was Bob Drapp. We’ve said this before, and we know
we’ll say it again, but the caliber of racers in AHDRA is top-notch. Bob Drapp is
certainly no exception! Chip
dialed his 11.60 again and had a reaction time of .127. He AGAIN ran the exact 11.666 run he
had had with Roberta. Bob’s
reaction time was an awesome .039 and he dialed in at 9.63, but Bob’s
shift linkage broke on the run and Chip got the win light again.
He’s
going to the Finals for the FIRST TIME in ET!!! This is Chip’s THIRD
appearance in the Finals (the other 2 being in SEP). But the win was to go to Wayne Pugh who
was near dead-on his dial-in of 9.70 with a 9.717. Chip dialed in an 11.53 thinking the
bike was going to go faster, but the starting line was a little slicker
and he ended up slowing down his 60-foot and ran an 11.717. Congratulations Wayne and Desert Dawg Racing!
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