Saturday Updates from Houston Regional

Tad e1

L Fair 5.301/260.21
R Manners 5.443/260

Fair leaves first and never looks back running low et of the meet. Looks like he may have got a head gasket in the lights.

 

Tafc e1

L Hool 5.682/258.37
R Lindberg 5.610/255.92 w

Lindberg grabs .08 off the line w a great .020 light and pedals to low et of weekend. Car was bouncing pretty good on top end.

 

Tafc e1

L Leanders 11.98/78
R Westerfield 5.730/257.48 w

Leanders motor went WAAY up on the revs for a second and obviously distracted him as he was way late and went up in smoke. Westerfield pedals through Shake and takes the win

 

Tafc e1

L Billington 5.845/250.46 w
R Lombardo 9.183/98

Upset alert! Billington goes in deep and the gamble pays off with a .004 rt. Lombardo shakes hard and can't get it to recover.

 

Tafc e1

L Whiteley
R Payne 5.663/249.72

Scary moment for Annie Whiteley as she has a tire come apart about 200'. The tire explodes and sends debris everywhere. The chutes deployed shortly after. She came to a stop about 1000' in the right lane. Annie is responsive and talking to EMT's. Apparently some debris hit her left knee.

 

Match ups

In tad Strasburg will face Fair, Fair w lane choice. In the other semi, Brounkowski has lane choice over Shields.

In TAFC Payne has lane choice over Billington and Lindberg has lane choice over Westerfield.

 

Update

TAD is under the tower. The word from the YNot camp is the wheelie bar broke during tire shake and got into the tire. Annie did not go to the hospital and is up and about in the pit, just a little sore.

Mark Billington kicked a rod in his win over John Lombardo, so Payne will have a single to the final.

 

Tad semi

L Shields 5.271/274.83 w
R D Brounkowski 6.221/167

Shields leaves first and never looks back. Brounkowski left good but smoked the tires quite a ways down track, about 330. Shields runs low et and top speed so far.

 

Tad semi

L Fair 14.35
R Strasburg 5.646. 271.79 w

Strasburg goes up on revs and rolls the beams, knocking the top bulb out. He drops the revs and s
"Saw" green w a .310 rt. the patience paid off as Fair smokes the tires at the hit. Strasburg shakes and makes a big pedal but gets it down.

 

TAFC semi

L Westerfield 5.723/256.06
R Lindberg 10.59/81

Westerfield takes a huge .041 to .189 holeshot and drives away to the win as Lindberg goes up in smoke. Westerfield still fighting shake but moves on to final.

 

TAFC semi

R Payne 5.684/249.39

Payne takes it down the track on his bye and gets lane choice.

 

Finals

In TAD Shields will have lane choice over Strasburg, Payne will have lane choice over Westerfield.

 

Rain

Rain is rapidly approaching the Baytown area. If I had to bet the finals are not happening tonight but no official decision has been made.

 

Called

The event was called due to rain.

TAD final will be ran at Gainesville, TAFC will be ran at Vegas or Houston.

Talked with Annie Whiteley, it was not debris that hit her knee, she was braking the car so hard she hit her knee with the brake handle. Glad to see her walking around and OK!

 

safety

I believe they said the bottom wheelie bar tube broke and in the tire shake swayed over into the tire.

I don't know about a wheelie bar tether, but if I ever drive a TAFC again, I will look hard into the seat shields. A piece of debris penetrated the seat about 8-9" below the shoulder hoop on the side of the seat. It got into the seat insert, but did not penetrate all the way through.

Just glad she was ok.

Annie says the team was talking about getting someone to bring her old car down to Florida so they can still make the Gators. It appears the chassis is fine, but the body is pretty much done. I think they want to try to put the old body to the new chassis.