Funny Car Throwdown
Sunday, August 7th: Island Dragway, Great Meadows, NJ
Beautiful weather was on tap for the second year of the Funny Car Throwdown at fabled Island Dragway’s 56th Anniversary event. Team QP rolled in the gates and into their pit spot around 9:30 and immediately got to work setting up the pit area. This show was a first for new crew member Daryl McCormick and returning for their first Island Dragway visit car chief Rick Sturz and his son Chase met the team at the track. Bryce Kovach and John and Anita Johnson made the haul from Reading, PA to support the family racing team as always!
We were tentatively running at 12:30 and we were placed as the solo run (odd number of cars) which was fine with us as we’re still sorting things out and testing the car any time we can. We made our way to the lanes around 3:30 after a lengthy delay. We were placed after the altereds and dragsters and just before the nitro funny cars of Bruce Larson and Chuck Exton. After a few oil clean ups and a minor mishap with a dragster crashing into a few cars in the lanes we were finally called to the line.
We fired the car up after having a difficult time and good friend Mike Hall guided driver Kevin Johnson into the water for the burnout. The Trans Am got up on the tire and lit them up for almost half the track. Backing up and lining up the tree comes down and a low RPM launch the car launched lazily and ran to 1000 feet before being shut off early. Oil was coming out of the valve covers and the fix wasn’t easy so we wrapped it up for the day, cleaned up the car, stuffed it in the trailer and watched the rest of the funny car racing.
We’re getting there. One step at a time and the next event we hope to have the car launching better and getting into the 7’s. Thanks to Island Dragway for inviting us to join the fun.
