Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Took a trip to Joliet, Illinois yesterday

And the trip started out looking pretty ominous.... Don't pay attention to the date on the camera, I quickly changed batteries when I was on the road and didn't get it right until after I stopped.




That was not more than 20 miles West of the house on Rt. 30. The storm was pretty nasty, large branches on 30, horizontal rain, and most of the businesses and traffic lights in Valpariso were not working (no electric).

But, the clouds and rain held off enough for qualifying, and there were some pretty good times turned in. Sorry for the pictures, point and shoot digital cameras aren't the best for catching high speed shots, especially at night...

I had forgotten what nitro does to the eyes. Some of the cars in the pits, when fired up, had a yellow haze down wind, and the crowd sure cleared out fast!!



A few from Pro Stock

On to Funny Car:




Bob Bode of Stupid Fast Racing is taking a page from Jungle Jim's racing days:


Better Picture from his website




I don't even know if these guys talk to each other anymore....

On to Top Fuel:

It's been a while since I was to a National Event, I think it was Pomona back in the late '90's. The sound levels are WAYYYY up there. I had a half filled water bottle on the bleachers, and it bounced around and tipped over during the first TF pass. The lady that was sitting in front of me jumped about a foot in the air when they hit the throttle at the first green.








I tried to get a few of them leaving the line, here's where the drawbacks of the cheaper digital cameras start to rear their ugly head.... A little blurry, but not that bad.


The recovery time of the camera was just barely fast enough.


I tried to time it right after they whacked the throttle....


Dwight, a little quicker than the left turn cars? NHRA went to 1,000 foot runs for the F/C & T/F cars a few years ago due to speed concerns.

My hat's off to Bill Miller Engineering for telling like it is:






His racing effort is solely a R&D test bed for their products. Hell of an R&D Budget!!!

Night time action shots are really where the camera fails. It's amazing what 16,000 horsepower going by at close to 300 MPH is like!!




Those blurry flashes of light over the guy's head in the yellow shirt are the flames coming out of the headers.


There was another storm getting pretty close, so I left the fence before the last run of the night. I wish I would have stayed. I was just on the other side of the bleachers when Antron Brown went down the track. 3.773, but Spencer Massey had the top speed of Fridays qualifying at 326.79 mph. Going that fast in just 1,000 feet just boggles the mind.

I was really, really happy to see Chris "The Greek" Karamesines
qualify for the show at 4.001 at 300.00 mph! He's either 82, 83 or 84 years old depending on who you listen to, and Lucas Oil announced that they'd sponsor him for as long as he continues to race.

I am envious!

You took some good pic's esshup. Love it!!!

I also love the smell of Nitro, 500" naturally aspirated that will twist a tach like a small block.

My favorite is NOS Pro Mod's!

Too bad US131 (Martin) went IHRA. They have a few shows a year, but nothing like a Real NHRA Drag Race.

Love the BME Pic's.

Thanks, esshup!!!

You can guess my favorite pic...legend has it she learned how to run in high heel boots in tight short shorts from our own JHAP. Guess that makes him a mentor, of sorts?

Hey TJ. Is that really Pepsi in your Coozie Cooler?

I expected too see family pictures from the prison up there lol jk

Nope, nobody's there. In fact, nobody that I know of in the family is incarcerated. Maybe a shoestring relative, for alcohol problems, but that's all that I know of.