NIGHT UNDER FIRE GOES UP IN SMOKE FOR RUSH WILLYS
Aug 20, 2011
Author: Bobby Martin

Event exceeds expectations. What an extravaganza!

Would you believe I've never been to Night Under Fire at Norwalk until this year? It's been going on for 34 years and most hard-core drag racing fans have been to it a bunch of times. I can say this, it's one of the few things in the entertainment world that lives up to the hype. What an extravaganza! I simply loved everything about the day, Funny Cars, those awesome, awesome Historic Funny Cars (many with the original drivers!) and wheelstanders. I talked about Richard Hutchins last time. He, like the event, lived up to the hype. How about low nines and 140+ in a wheelstanding truck? Outrageous! And the fireworks show had to be seen to be believed. There were pyrotechnics popping up from every direction. Congratulations to Bill Bader and staff for a truly great day of entertainment and fun.

As for us, we smoked the tires on both qualifying hits. What in the world? It was all I could do to avoid tagging the wall the first time. On the second attempt, I pedaled it like in a fuel car, but it wasn't going to hook, and we weren't going to make the 4.20 run needed to make the show. This was extrmemely disappointing as you can imagine. We had the stoutest tune-up ever in the car. Too much power? No such thing. The best we can determine is a tire problem. Yeah, blame the tires. Well, we'll have new ones on for this weekend at Thompson and we'll see what happens.

We'll also have a special guest secret weapon tuner on board for this event. This could be good. We'll do Thompson's Asphalt Wars this weekend (Saturday the 20th) and Pittsburgh's Outlaw Pro Mods the 27th. Asphalt Wars is one of the most fun events I've ever driven in. There are two featured classes. Door Wars, which is an 8 car qualified field of any kind of doorslammer imaginable, and Open Body, which is an 8 car qualified field of basically everything else. Yeah, dragsters, Funny Cars (yes there were Funny Cars last month) and altereds. I guess the only rule is it's gotta have 4 wheels. Last time, there were 17 cars trying to qualify, so get there for qualifying cuz it's an outstanding show. Times are easy to remember. Gates open at 10am, qualifying starts at 12, Q2 is 2:00 and round 1 is at 4. The track is at 8233 Sidley Road, Thompson OH 44086.