More NHRA pics and volleyball

Ok as I promised here are a few more snapshots I took from the Texas Motorplex this past Saturday. First up we have two lovely ladies about to race. On the left is the Top Fuel dragster of the little lady I showed you in the previous blog, Hillary Will. Hillary is 26 years old and is alal of 5'4 and 110 lbs. She seems to do quite well handling the estimated 7000 horsepower these dragsters generate. Heres hoping she continues for a long succesful career in this sport. On the right is Melanie Troxel who was leading the points race earlier in the year but has slowed some as of late. Melanie is a 2nd generation racer as her dad is veteren drag racer Mike Troxel and she is married to Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson Jr.I like this pic cause of the way it captured the nitromethane, unburned pumping out into the air. The very first time I went to a national event many years ago, we watched the team of Doug Herbert rebuild the engine between rounds. This is an every round thing for most all teams just to check everything out. Anyway we were standing maybe 12-15 feet or less behind the dragster as they fired it up to test something and while it was quite loud the main thing I remember is how badly the nitromethane burned the eyes. I guess you could say my first experience ith nitro was not alltogether pleasant but I did learn to not stand directly behind the cars when they fire them up haha.

Here we have, in the Budweiser dragster, the eventual event winner who is also a 2nd generation racer. He is Brandon Bernstein, son of legendary racer Kenny Bernstein who is also owner of the race team. Brandon is 34 years of age. He is racing here against JR Todd who is 26 I think and the first black man or woman to race in top fuel.

Here are some Pro Stock racers. This is the most exciting class to some as the cars are so close in performance. Sometimes the field of 16 qualified cars is seperated by hundredths or thousandths of a second and anyone can come out on top. This is Tom Martino at the top racing against yet another 2nd generation racer in Kurt Johnson whose dad also races in the same classification. This is one of a few shots that turned out decently with the cars actually in motion racing down the track.

Here we have last years champion Funny Car driver Gary Scelzi. Gary is known for his wild paint schemes on his car and this was a one race only body and was sent to Las Vegas after this race to be a part of a big auto manufacturers show held there.

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There will be more pics tomorrow morning. Had another nice "date" with Ms Sandra yesterday. She came by and we went to her daughters volleyball game together. She was feeling a bit under the weather but still was a nice day. Their team won both games and everything seems to be going pretty great here soooooo......... haha. Time to go walk and get my butt in bed soon. Have to get up and finish the tuneup on the Yukon which seems to have been pushed to the back burner lately. Anyone wanna come help?