Here's what we did all day Saturday - Night Under Fire pictures!

IHRA Night Under Fire - more than a little cool. Especially when you're cleared to take pictures just feet from a monster jet truck. *yawn* All in a nights work. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img] Check out the little video's. I'm still learning to do that with the camera, so they aren't quite what I hoped for. But I think they're not too shabby.

http://abilenedragstrip.com/041704.html


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ckelly on 4/19/04 9:01am ]</font>

every school kids should be picked up by a coolbus.

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Ours is scheduled for this summer with a big street car shootout! What a blast [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_tup.gif[/img]
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Nice pictures Chris[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_tup.gif[/img]

I have gone to the Night under Fire in Norwalk Ohio I might try to make it again this year.
Bob
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The smile on that young boy's face sums it all up for me! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Looks like it was a funtastic weekend and the red wagon dragster looks really crazy Chris!

Thanks!

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IN....SAAAAAAAAAANNE!![img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img][img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img]
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The kid is my grandson - he STILL has a big grin on his face and every semi on the road is like the "big boom-boom-boom truck!". His other grandpa bought him a coolbus t-shirt and a coolbus toy. He went on and on about the wheelie and wanted to see the videos about 20 times on Sunday. This granpa got him and myself matching IHRA event shirts. Can you say "fawned over"?

Other fun facts:
They didn't run the red wagon thing as the people with it said they just bought it on the way down to Abilene. !

We had nearly 4000 people on the little 53 acres. The fireworks ended at 9:30 and when we pulled out at 11:45 they were STILL coming out of the back 20 and the spectator side parking. It was nuts. The Dept of Public Safety called the track - they were getting calls from truckers saying "What the hell is going on? We're dodging people on I-20!". People had started parking on the far side of the freeway and running across to the track. Ieee.

I was interviewed by KTAB-TV, but I was pretty hoarse from my cold and haven't heard from anyone that saw the interview - if it even made air. The TV stations had video from the event. Me and the Falcon are in the video vault anyway.

The Abilene Reporter-News (paper) - not a damn thing. They have the stupidest sports department on the planet. If it's isn't stick-and-ball, they just don't know or care apparently. Idiots.

There was a one hour wait for hamburgers. They gotta fix that.

Tom (track manager) left the dial in board up for the first Shockwave run. He just turned it sideways. The truck blew out almost all the bulbs (he used every single spare he had to get it running) and it was so hot it burned his hand when he touched it.

The shockwave really did set the asphalt on fire. The pics I took didn't show it well. They watered the crap out of that area on the next runs. My wife was on the tower second level and said it got damn hot up there! It also fried the rubber off about 20~30' of the burnout box. I drew that lane in the second round and went out - fell off .03. Shoulda known.

Shockwave also blew the 10' chain link fence that edges the staging lanes - about 40' behind the burnout box- over at a 45 degree angle.

Shockwave ran an easy 5.50 @ 150 MPH on the last run (the video). Not bad for a 7000 lb truck. He said "we never race 1/8 mile. So we dind't really know."

Super Chief blew two ignighters on the first run, fried the chutes in the box the second and smoked the house out on the third, then the afterburners caught about 3/4 track and he liked to ran off the end.