Hi everyone, Nicky Boninfante here with a report about how I spent Father's Day weekend.
 
Most racing fans probably wonder how the guys that work on NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car teams spend their weekends off. A lot of drivers and crew chiefs usually enjoy a relaxing day fishing or playing 18 holes of golf. I have a different way of enjoying myself on my valuable weekends off, I love to go to local match races with my dad and all his old guys and burn nitro with his U.S. Male nostalgia Funny Car driven by Phil Burkart.
 
The car has actually already run two races so far this year and has run a best of 5.82 at 247 mph. During my “spare time” at Boninfante Clutches I usually service the car for my dad, Nick Sr., so he and the old guys can go run it on the weekends while I am “tuning’ on the DHL Toyota Funny Car with Jon O and the Radman.
 
So we had a perfect weekend planned. Saturday morning we head out to near-by Maple Grove Dragway for the "Night of Fire."  But the typical weather at Maple Grove, which is rain, postponed the race until the next day. The rain date was the next day, Sunday June 21 … Father's Day.
What better way to celebrate Father's Day than to celebrate it at a drag strip with your dad. Sunday was a beautiful day, 73 degrees, partly cloudy and perfect conditions; kind of unusual for Maple Grove.
 
We ran Crazy Jake Crimmins in a two-run match race. Most people probably remember Jake. He drove one of "Jungle Jim's" cars in the '70s back when I was in diapers.  The first run we had it set up soft and ran a 5.93 at 243 and beat Jake's 6.55. Then we had to service the car. Cool part is that the crew is actually four of Nick Sr.’s old crew that worked on his cars back in the '70s and '80s.
 
Nick Sr. does the most important job, the supervising. The driver Phil Burkart packs the chutes, John Hums changed the bearings just like he did way back then, my brother-in-law Ken McGlade worked on the top end with Elliott Pickett. Pat “Mouse” Walsh, my dad's “old” driver (and I do mean old; I think Mouse is in his late 70s now) mixed the nitro. I reset the clutch and my brother Rob just was standing around looking cool. Even my nephew, James, who just turned 10, was there waxing the body and pocketing all the profits from the T-shirt sales. What a great time. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to work on a nostalgia Funny Car; it is truly like the old days. Not having any tools you need to work on the car, and getting it ready in about 50 minutes. Having Lex Dudas in the background …. "Hurry up we need you in the lanes in five minutes, oh, by the way and you run behind the jet cars. That should provide more of a challenge for you, after they spray the track with kerosene."
 
We made it up to the line for the last run and finally managed to mess up. Phil did a real long halftrack smoky burnout and backed up about 100 mph. When he left the line it was obvious there was a problem. A big cloud of clutch dust from behind the car and it left like a “turtle.” Well it was in high gear and Jake finally beat us. He ran a 6.33 (one of his best runs ever) to our 6.52. Man, we were pissed. When we got back to the trailer everybody was standing around talking about how quick we could have gone. Then we loaded up; it took about 10 minutes cause in nostalgia racing everything has a place, just thrown on the floor of the trailer then we headed for home, about a 50-minute ride.
 
I got in at about 6 p.m. and was greeted by my wife, Sara, and son Blake who had a bunch of Father's Day gifts for me and a wonderful steak dinner. It was a very special Father's Day for me and I recommend that all the crew chief and drivers that are tired of fishing and golfing try a nostalgia Funny Car for some relaxing time. It’s fun!
 
See you all in Norwalk. Later