Adam Murrihy may have seen his Goldenstates Nitro Funny Car campaign end up in ‘the beach’ at the Perth Motorplex, but the Territorian is pleased to report the resulting damage to the A.M Motorsports Nitro Freak won’t derail his plans for Dragway at The Bend’s Festival State Nationals (January 13/14).
Murrihy was on a barnstormer of a final pass for what was the second round of the Nitro Funny Cars National Drag Racing Championship (NDRC) season, when all of a sudden things went wrong.
“We had a couple of qualifiers to start that weren’t that great, we had a new set of tyres on for the first one and just as the clutch came in it shook the tyres up the deep end, and it pretty much did the same thing for the second qualifier, so it is safe to say qualifying wasn’t fantastic for us,” Murrihy explained.
“Then in round one we were up against then title leader Justin Walshe and we were on a real nice pass but it started drifting to the right and was about to shake the tyres, so I had a quick pedal and that just took us across to the centre line and clipped the 1000ft marker, so that pass was disqualified.
“In round two we had an air line in the cab come off, so in the starting area when we turned the bottle on that runs the fuel management system the leak used all the air and we weren’t able to do that run.
“Then came the third and final run – the exciting one! It was a good run, the car was happy, it just started making its way across to the right a little towards the finish line, feeling a bit loose.
“I threw the parachutes out and it didn’t seem to make a great amount of difference, so I had to get back on the steering wheel and the brake and try and get it off the wall, and we just ran out of runway in the end.
“We only just touched the headers on the wall so there wasn’t a lot of damage there, but when the car came to rest in the sand it had done quite a bit of damage to the bodywork.
“We had originally planned to leave the car in WA at Rory Taylor’s workshop and then bring it to Dragway at The Bend in January from there, but with our spare body in Brisbane, we changed plans to bring it back to Brisbane, arriving back Thursday midday.
“We are now getting the car pulled apart to be ready for racing at Tailem Bend.”
While there is a fair amount of work to do, Murrihy says there are no concerns about not being able to make the next round of the Nitro Funny Car title chase.
“The crew has had a pretty detailed look over the car in Perth and it doesn’t appear to be anything that would keep us away, it will just be a matter of stripping the car and getting it back together,” he said.
The Festival State Nationals at Dragway at The Bend will mark the debut of Nitro Funny Cars at the brand-new venue in South Australia.
“Hopefully we can get there with the car in good shape, and I guess you can say the driver has had a bit of extra training now thanks to the Perth challenges,” Murrihy grinned.
“If all the stars align, I think it will definitely be a very fast event for the entire Nitro Funny Car field.
“As far as the racing, I guess the cards will fall starting with the first pass won’t they?
“It would certainly be good to have some success there.
“A result is very sought after, and all of the crew have been working exceptionally hard on the car and will be continuing to do so ahead of January, so it would be great to reward them with a podium.
“We will certainly be doing all we can,” he concluded, while thanking Meals Concrete Pumping, his crew chief Brett Ehmer, all of his dedicated crew for all their commitment and hard work, and all his family for their support.
The Festival State Nationals at Dragway at The Bend will host NDRC racing for not only the 11,000hp/500kph Nitro Funny Cars, but also Top Doorslammer, Top Fuel Motorcycle, Pro Alcohol and the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship across January 13-14.
Before it does however, Australia’s best sportsman racers will compete at South Coast Raceway for the South Coast 660 and Western conference points in the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship across January 6-7.
For event info, go to ndrc.tv
