The team routine maintenance
on the car in preparation of the first round of eliminations.
All back together - time
for the warm up.
Saturday Eliminations
Round One
In the first stanza Murphy
was matched with James Day in the Fugowie car.
Beebe made the final
adjustments before sending Murphy up to stage.
Day left slightly ahead
of Murphy but Jim caught him by the 60' clocks.
By the 330' clocks Day was out
of the groove and moving toward the center line. With Murphy
long gone he wisely shut it off.
Murphy stopped the clocks with
a nice 5.842 at just 229.29 to advance to round two on Sunday.
Sunday Eliminations
Round Two
5:00 p.m. found Murphy
facing Rick Williamson to see who would advance to round 3.
Murphy was out first
and never looked back.
The big green car went
right down the middle of the track to card a 5.88 at 247.79.
Sunday Eliminations
Round Three
Because of the odd car count
being run on a 16 car ladder, there was one bye run every round
to the final. In the semis Murphy got the nod.
Wanting lane choice in the final
Beebe and Murphy went for it. The car had great early fractions.
Knowing he only had to run better
than a 6.66 (White's time in the semis) Murphy ran it to the
1100' foot mark and shut off to a 5.98 at just 212.21.
It was still sunlight when the
crew dove into the job of getting the car ready for a huge final.
When the engine was buttoned
up it was dark.
Top Fuel Final
Murphy was first into
the staging lane with White right behind him. It was show time.
White had a slight lead
at the hit and both cars left like rockets.
Just past the 60' clocks Murphy's
car got out of the groove and started to push to the center.
Driving like a man possessed,
Murphy used every trick he knew to wrestle the car back into
its lane but it had a mind of its own. The Boise track has narrow
grooved to begin with and when the temps drop it can be a very
tricky place to race.
The flames in Jim's car went
down just before he crossed the center line and took out a couple
of timing blocks.
A dejected Murphy reels his car
in and watches helplessly as White streaked to low ET of the
meet.
Until next time, keep the
shiny side up and we hope to see some of you in Sacramento on
September 18-19.
