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| We all thought “sidewinders” were a thing of the past until we came across Lee Lynum and his girlfriend Joyce Risner. The Ft. Worth, TX, racer and machine shop owner put this full-boogie Hemi sideways in the rails and then used a chain drive. Although it broke at "the Valley,” Joyce has driven this dragster to a 2.95 to become a member of the two-second club. | |
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| Rod Trower and wife Dee came in from Oklahoma with a pair of ultra-sano turbocharged, fuel-injected, V-6-powered rails. The little turbocharged V-6 hauled the mail. This is Dee between the tubes driving the digger with the wheels up. She didn’t lift. | |
Around 16 cars showed up to qualify for the elite eight-car field for the Top class. Breakage, threatening weather, and other things limited the field to seven by the time eliminations were announced. All qualifiers were lead by the Martuscelli/Earle/Mayer team with a 2.61.
Despite threatening rain, eliminations went off as scheduled on Saturday night.
Martuscelli had a bye run and used it to get the first leg of the track e.t. record with 2.55/129.55 in the first round of eliminations. In the second round he was paired up against cover car and fellow Michigander Pat Goodale and his Whipple-charged, big-block powered rail. Martuscelli just got by Goodale with a 2.620 to Goodale’s best of the event 2.627.
That race set up a final round match-up against David Houser and his “Predator” rail. Mayer stepped on the tune-up and told his driver to “drive it out the back door.” The result was a 2.56/128 lap that backed up the 2.55/129 track speed and e.t. record and overcame the 2.75 that his opponent ran for Frank and Shari Martuscelli’s first national event win.
