Good Vibrations March Meet, Auto Club Famoso Raceway, Bakersfield, CA, March 4, 2016—While more than a dozen dragsters blasting their way into an 8-car Top Fuel Eliminator would normally be entertaining enough, SCE Gaskets has opted to crank up the drama further by posting a $1000 award to AA/Fuel Dragster driver scoring the fastest speed during qualifying.
Why reward speed instead of elapsed time? Tradition, actually.
“This is the 57th anniversary of the first March Meet, the most historic contest of outright horsepower,” Ryan Hunter, President of SCE Gaskets, Inc. noted. “Nothing demonstrates horsepower better than speed.”
Hence, the SCE Gaskets AAFD Qualifier’s Top Speed Award…
Although qualifying positions and the eliminator ladder are based on elapsed time and not speed, with an 8-car show and a half-dozen fuelers NOT qualifying it stands to reason that many of these fearless drivers will be keeping the hammer down through the top-end timing trap.
“Yeah, I’ll be gunning for it,” confirmed Jim Young, two-time March Meet winner and current holder of the Heritage Series Top Fuel record at a ferocious 266 mph (a speed he backed up with an even faster 269 mph.)
“Speed is expensive, but fun,” Young said. “And this car will mph just trying to make ET.”
Young’s nemesis Tony Bartone has tripped the timers twice at over 270-mph, most recently while winning last year’s March Meet. Will he be inspired to take Ryan Hunter’s money? Or is the SCE Gaskets AAFD Qualifier’s Top Speed Award incentive enough for Young to break his own record?-30-
