Answering the Bell
Whoever said getting there is half the fun probably never traveled to a race with Super Stock drivers Eric Bell and Dave Mann. Bell, a former major league baseball player who currently campaigns a very clean and competitive SS/EA Dodge Challenger, and Mann, who campaigns an original four-speed Hemi-powered ’67 Coronet in SS/E, left their home in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday and expected to arrive in Indy by late Saturday night. However, less than a half-hour from home, things went terribly wrong as their diesel toter-home suffered a massive engine failure.
 
“We knew something was really wrong when smoke started rolling through the vents,” said Bell. “We finally called a big two truck and they dragged the whole rig back to Phoenix.”

Over the weekend, Bell and Mann waited while the engine was completely rebuilt. After paying a hefty repair bill, they finally got on the road early Wednesday and arrived at Indy, 2,100 miles later at 4 a.m. on Thursday. With just one qualifying run remaining before the start of Friday’s class eliminations, Bell drove to a 9.40 for the No. 6 spot while Mann got on the qualifying sheet with a (-.465) 10.085 and will have to improve to make the field.

“The thought of not getting our truck fixed never crossed my mind,” said Bell. “This is Indy and I want to be here and I figured that as long as I had a chance to make one qualifying run, I was going to go for it. It wasn’t fun but the cool thing about it is that 20 years from now we’ll still be talking about our road trip to the 2009 U.S. Nationals.”

Filling up
With the exception of a few Pro Stock teams, who continue to test at Gateway Int’l Raceway in Madison, the pits at O’Reilly Raceway Park are almost completely full. By late Thursday afternoon, most of the nitro and alcohol teams had set up shop in the East side pit are while on the west side, the Pro Stock Bike rigs have filled the last empty spaces behind the main grandstand. Further to the West, the teams participating in the Get Screened America Pro Mod exhibition are lined up along the fence, next to the area that housed most of the Super Stock competitors in Friday’s Mopar Hemi Challenge. By a conservative estimate, there are well over 1,200 race and support rigs crammed into the vast expanse of O’Reilly Raceway Park. As late Charlotte Observer motorsports reporter David Poole once noted, “An NHRA event is like a State Fair for gear heads.” That about sums it up.

Big Daddy misses the cut
Sadly, Top Fuel legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits will not be among the 128 Stock Eliminator drivers that take part in Saturday’s opening round of eliminations. Garlits had two shots to qualify his 2009 Dodge Challenger on Thursday, but his 10.432 best was just .868-under the index, well short of the -1.016 that is took to make the field.

Despite the setback, Garlits’ Stock Eliminator debut was not without its highlights. In Thursday’s opening round of A/SA class eliminations, Garlits was paired with sportsman star Dan Fletcher and gave the 63-time national event winner a taste of his own medicine with a .007 reaction time although Fletcher quickly made up the difference and claimed a 10.33 to 10.48 win over Garlits.

“I didn’t really get a chance to say much to him and I’m sure he wasn’t happy with the way his car was running, but it’s pretty cool to say that I got to race against Don Garlits,” said Fletcher. “That’s not something that I ever though would happen to me.”
 

Comp gets started
Comp Eliminator racers hit the track at Indy on Thursday for their first two qualifying passes. After one run, Dave Yedney was the provisional top qualifier with an (-618) 8.872 in his L/Altered Opel, which was previously campaigned by Canadian racer Allyn Armstrong. The only other drivers more than six-tenths under their respective indexes are Pat Nahan who posted a (-.607) 7.513 in his front engine E/Dragster and Charlie Greco, who wheeled his D/AA GTO to a (-.604) 7.646.

Disabled list
West coast racer Steve Wann, the winner of last weekend’s Lucas Oil Series race in Topeka, and Division 1 Stock driver Bill Hawk are both reportedly done for the weekend after damaging their race cars during early qualifying. Wann broke the engine in his SS/HA ’69 Barracuda and has parked that car although he is still in competition with his F/SA Dodge Dart. Hawk, who was considered a leading contender for the class title in B/SA with his ’67 Shelby, is also parked after a big wheelstand and subsequent hard landing damaged the front end of the car.