BAKERSFIELD 2008

NHRA HERRITAGE SERIES 2008

BAKERSFIELD MAY 30, 31 and June 1st

To all members and those who should be,

This was another nice event put on by the NHRA and the weather Gods were once again good to us as the weather was perfect, I’m sure this will change. The race was well organized and ran on time for most of the event. It looked like the car count was pretty good but for whatever reason they didn’t advertise so there weren’t many fans. This was very disappointing.

The track was good and the top times and speeds for all the AA/Gasser’s war right in line with what we expected. There was one exception to that comment and that was the addition of a new AA/GAS car from Canada. The owner and driver is Jirka Kaplan and he had some tuning help from Les Davenport. They had trouble in qualifying but got things squared away in eliminations and they ran back-to-back 6.57’s before loosing in the finals to Chris Abbey.

Congratulations to all the participants and especially to the Goshgarian/Abbey team and the Kaplan team for their outstanding performance. Fun weekend with some great racing.

Low ET and top speed went to Jirka 6.57 at 210.13.

Association low ET and top speed went to Chris, 5.58 at 209.44.

QUALIFYING ROUND #1

Steve Woods- Bad run didn’t shift

John Peterson- 6.944 at 194.25 Burnt a piston

Cecil Matthews- 7.48 at 183.93 Not bad on seven cylinders

Dale Boomgaarden- Bad run electrical problems

Sean Renteria- Lost the engine, too much damage to repair

Chris Abbey- Bad run, valve problems

Jirka Kaplan- Engine problems, repairable

THIS WAS QUITE A FIRST ROUND, ONE WE WILL ALL FORGET

QUALIFYING ROUND #2

Dale Boomgaarden- 6.88 at 203.11 Engine problems, repairable

John Peterson- 6.91 at 200.53 Got out of the groove and he hung on and didn’t lift, exciting to say the least

Cecil Matthews- 7.13 at 200.62 getting better

Chris Abbey- 6.58 at 197.24 great run but hurt the engine

Steve Woods- 6.67 at 203.66 ready for eliminations

Jirka Kaplan- Bad run throttle linkage fell off

QUALIFYING ROUND #3

John Peterson- 6.93 at 199.86

Cecil Matthew- 7.36 didn’t get speed

Jirka Kaplan- Shook tires

ROUND #1 ELIMINATIONS

Steve Woods- 6.64 at 209.10 By run

John Peterson- 6.95 at 199.46 nice run OVER

Cecil Matthews- 7.06 at 198.54

Chris Abbey- 7.52 at 119.27 ran through second gear and shut off

Jirka Kaplan- 6.57 at 197.93 this obviously got every ones attention especially since he shut off early OVER

Dale Boomgaarden- Red light

ROUND #2 ELIMINATIONS

Jirka Kaplan- 6.57 at 210.13 just a super run, one of the best ever OVER

Steve Woods- 6.66 at 208.47 nothing to be ashamed of, just got beat

Chris Abbey- 6.70 at 209.44 were they saving something for the finals or were they hurt? We will never know OVER

John Peterson- 6.85 at 207.43 good mph, future looks great

AND in the FINALS

Chris Abbey- they have the kill button on and Chris gets real loose BUT

Jirka Kaplan- red lights

Our winning team, Goshgarian/Abbey, and it wasn’t easy.

Jirka says he is joining the group and looks forward to the last two events

Best to all, Frank

Frank Martin. 925-516-4062

4676 Cove Lane 925-628-3784cell

Discovery Bay, CA 94514 925-634-6476 fax.