2022 BAKERSFIELD MARCH MEET - EVENT PAGE
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FINAL NOTEBOOK - SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST WEEKEND COMES TO A CLOSE
There was a moment when the 64th annual Bakersfield March Meet would be a survival of the fittest endeavor. In the end, Brett Williamson (Top Fuel), Bobby Cottrell (Funny Car), and Dan Hix (Fuel Altered) put on a clinic.
Williamson knew he was in for a wild weekend, following his first qualifying attempt where he made a challenging run to the finish line under power. The rain had started to work its way in for the day, and under the threat of a downpour, Williamson made it to the finish line under power, the only one to do so.
It was no lucky draw as Williamson went on to improve in the second session.
The more Williamson ran, the more he stood out as the driver to beat.
Williamson stopped the veteran Jim Murphy in the final round for the clean sweep weekend. The triumph marked the first time Williamson had won with Mike Fuller.
"So proud of my guys, I'm getting teared up already," Williamson said. "So proud of Mike Fuller. Super cool final round where I was sitting. It was just header flame for days, man. This 2022 March Meet, pretty sick."
The Funny Car final was a bit anticlimactic, as Geoff Monise threw in the towel for breakage, thus handing Bobby Cotrell an easy win. All Cottrell had to do was stage the car, and the race was over.
"It's not really the way we wanted to win," Cottrell admitted. "The car ran great. Bucky [Austin] did a great job, and my crew did a great job. We thrashed a lot between rounds; A lot of parts were used up this weekend. It all came together and worked out for us."
Hix learned a valuable lesson on Sunday. The race isn't over until it's over, and definitely not when you are in a Fuel Altered.
Hix was first out of the gate in his match against David Whynaught but quickly encountered tire smoke, and his wild machine quickly became a handful. Whynaught raced ahead and appeared on his way to victory when his ride lost power.
Hix got back on the throttle and ran down Whynaught, who had developed quite a lead.
"That's the most fun I've probably ever had in this car right there," Hix said. "And it's funny how sometimes the most wacko runs are just more fun, you know? You get used to a good run or whatever, but boy, smoking the tires like that and actually tracking somebody down. I thought it was lights out, but I wasn't giving up seeing him. He didn't have any oil pressure, so he didn't give up. He had to make a smart move to not blow his stuff up but tracking him down like that. Oh man, the adrenaline started pumping about half-track, and here we come, and boy, I flew by him, and wow. That's just awesome. Just totally awesome."
Hix was convinced the race was over until he saw Whynaught slowing in the distance.
"I saw him shut off, and I thought, "No way," because I wasn't giving up yet, not till his light came on, but when I saw him start to slow, I thought, 'Man, you are you kidding me?" Hix explained. "And here I come, I had plenty of time to track him down, and wow. I mean, that goes back to my sprint car days right there. I mean, that was fun. Boy, it sure seems like it takes a long time for that car to come back down on the tire at the starting line. But soon as she hit bottom, I was on the throttle and, boy, shot out of a cannon at that point."
Lyle Greenberg's beautiful Cone Hunter Corvette won the Nitro Pro Comp division, stopping Keith Wilson's Witch Doctor Fiat fuel altered in the final round.
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - REOPEN IT AND THEY WILL COME, EVEN IF IT IS COLDER THAN HECK
NO SLEEPING FOR THE LION TONIGHT - After all the success and domination over the past four years, Bobby Cottrell still gets excited.
The last time the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series rolled into Bakersfield, California, for the season-ending California Hot Rod Reunion, Cottrell wrapped up his fourth consecutive national championship in Nostalgia Funny Car. He did so on the strength of a dominating season which consisted of four wins in five events.
In the first race of the new season, Cottrell is more than ready to defend his title.
"I'm excited," Cottrell said. "You have a few months off, and the excitement's building. All the emotions and stuff kind of get involved. But being out here is just great. So we're just super excited to get with it."
Cotrell is content to stick with the team's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra.
"Obviously, the competition's going to be stiffer," Cottrell explained. "As a driver, you always try to come with the new ways, better ways of doing things. But as far as my crew and everything else, you don't want to break anything that's not broke. So we're just going to stick with our routine, and as far as out at the track, we're just going to try our best as usual." Cottrell explains.
Cottrell, who drives for championship-winning team owner and crew chief Bucky Austin, will battle this season with the same crew as in 2021. However, there is one addition as "Tommy" joins the established championship roster.
Cottrell's love and passion for winning hasn't subsided in the least. And this may be his strongest weapon, with a younger lion entering the nitro den.
"Well, it is more exciting obviously, because Drew's a young kid; he's full of piss and vinegar," Cottrell said. "But you know guys like having Cory Mac and all those [veteran] guys, it just, for me personally, they're trying to take what's mine, so I'm going to try to rip their head off, as usual.
"The respect level is a lot higher this year because obviously the competition and stuff. But it's just business as usual for me. So I'm just going to try to do what I do.
NOT THE DAY FOR DAY - For Nostalgia Funny Car racer James Day, the saying, "When it rains, it pours," has little to do with the conditions he and fellow Bakersfield March Meet racers have faced at this weekend's event.
Misfortunes have been raining down out of the sky this weekend on Day and the Matthews Motorsports team the entire event.
The race weekend appeared to get off on the right foot for Day, as on Thursday, the team came out with a 5.56, 248 elapsed time in Thursday testing.
However, in Friday's first session, the team missed the combination and limped from A to B.
Confident, Day and the Matthews team came out and went right to the top of the qualifying order in Saturday's Q-2 session, laying down the low elapsed time of the event, a 5.585, 243.56.
With the run came the combination of smoke, fire, and safety bottles engaged. The end result, per March Meet rules, was the disqualification of the run, and eventually a DNQ.
"Cecil and the boys had her tuned up and she was hauling the mail and the car was really flying and just going into the lights, it blew up big," Day explained. "So I set the bottles off and got the parachutes out and got her stopped down there and the Safety Safari was right there. It was a great run. We're out of parts. So I hate to say that. It hurts me, but the Bakersfield air got us this time."
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - NO PANDEMIC, BUT PLENTY OF WET STUFF IN THE FIRST DAY OF MARCH MEET
MAJOR VICTORY - Friday's action at the 64th annual Bakersville March Meet was a race against the clock in more ways than one. The morning schedule was washed out due to rain, and with a second major storm bearing down on the area, race officials made the most of a three-hour window to get in a full session of professional nostalgia qualifying.
Drew Austin (Funny Car), Bret Williamson (Top Fuel), and Pete Peterson (AA/Fuel Altered) are the provisional leaders after one session of qualifying.
"A to B runs are always really good," Austin said. "We didn't really expect it to go a .59. Put good tuneup in it. Saw that the air was really good and we kind of missed a little bit on that. But it felt great. It was a good, nice, smooth run. And as long as you keep her in the groove, the groove is always good."
Austin set the pace for the field with a 5.592 elapsed time at 257.73 mile per hour run, overtaking Bobby Cottrell at the end of the session, who ended the second day with a 5.660, 254.47. Jerry Espeseth was third with a 5.688.
With rain imminent, Austin and the team knew that getting down the track under power was crucial.
"That's why we thought of backing out, more than what we did," Austin said. "It was stuck the whole run. I mean, it was a really good run, and it went straight. My dad did great; he did his job; I did my job, our crew is doing a great job this weekend. So everything is really important, especially when you've got weather delays like this, to go right on the track. It's a very important thing."
Additionally, Austin had some extra inspiration.
"It's my son's birthday today, so that run was for my son," Austin said. "He's three years old today."
Williamson claimed the top spot amongst the dragsters with a 5.916, 249.72, beating out Tyler Hilton, who ran 6.062, 194.07.
"It wasn't boring for sure," Williamson said. "I was probably the only one dumb enough to drive it the whole way. The track's iffy because of the rain, because of the cold weather, but we got it A to B-ish, and it looks all right, so we're going to go again tomorrow."
Jim Murphy was third with a 6.692. Pete Wittenberg anchors the field with an off-pace 9.937.
Petersen's '48 Fiat was the class of the AA/FA field with a 6.221, 236.92, with Brian Hope second with a 6.258 to land second.
The Nostalgia Pro Comp division had the final two cars on the starting line, staged and ready to run when the skies opened up, thus ending the day. Keith Wilson's Witch Doctor 1948 Fiat leads provisionally with a 6.306, 157.52.
March Meet qualifying resumes on Saturday morning at 9 AM PST.
ON THE WILD SIDE - It only took Ron Capps five seconds to realize this was not the Kentucky Derby confines of his NHRA program, but instead, the rodeo version with a wild bucking bronco in the form of a fuel altered.
The last time Capps was behind the wheel of a fuel altered was 2020, the year he won the Fuel Altered division at the March Meet, the last event before the pandemic hit.
It didn't take Capps long to get reacquainted during his practice runs on Thursday at the Good Vibrations March Meet.
"These cars are so different from the big show cars that it takes a little bit of getting used to, and things are in a different place, but it is a fuel altered, and it quickly reminds you that it's a fuel altered," Capps said. "It's got zero downforce and a short wheelbase and just a lot of fun."
Capps is running a new fuel altered, honoring the legendary Burkholder Brothers Fiat. Previously, the original Burkholder car was used for Cacklefest events only.
The new car, Capps said, takes the experience to a whole new level.
"I can't believe I'm driving this car first of all," Capps admitted. "Harry Burkholder's up there. It's an unbelievable feeling that I had a poster of this car on my wall as a kid.
"They put it period correct, same colors, just such a beautiful car."
Building this car appears to be perfect timing for a Fuel Altered resurgence.
"This fuel altered class growing and growing and growing, it's an eight-car show, and I think there's over 15 cars here," Capps explained. "The Pure Hell car is here, Randy Bradford. I just talked to him. It's a dream for me even to drive, let alone the Burkholder cars, so it was nice to make a checkout run Thursday."
On that checkout run, Capps admits the pucker factor was significant.
"One to 10, It's like a 14 at all times even when it's going well," Capps said.
Thank goodness for veteran journeyman James Day, who was able to make some test runs in the car for Capps while he was racing at the recently-completed NHRA Arizona Nationals.
"He went, I think as the fastest speed ever in an altered, it was over 240 miles an hour," Capps said. So he set the precedence, and it was a great test session. It really made me feel a little bit better coming here, knowing he made a lap in this thing, but Bill Windham did a great job of putting his thing together. It went right up there and went right down the track, so really excited about it."
Now that Capps is a team owner, does he see having a fuel altered of his own in the cards?"
"It's like a boat. I don't want to own one; I just want to drive somebody else's," Capps surmised.
FINALLY! - Blake Bowser, the face of Famoso DragStrip, never imagined what would have transpired following his highly successful 2020 Bakersfield March Meet event in a million years.
A worldwide pandemic sent the drag racing community into a tailspin, the likes of which have taken Bowser and the rest of the drag racing world almost two years to reconfigure its baseline.
When qualifying kicks off for the 64th annual Good Vibration March Meet, it will be the first time Bowser and his team have fielded a drag race the way it used to be. This time the restrictions will be left up to the race fans.
"It's normal in the sense that there's no restrictions, but it's not normal in the fact that there still is some COVID going around and some apprehension on some people's part," Bowser explained. "So, in essence, it is normal but normal... Back before 2020, I don't know if we'll ever see that again, but we'll see."
The weekend after Bowser completed his event; the drag racing world hit the pause button for at least four months.
"We had some phone calls leading up to the week of the 2020 event asking if we're going to cancel because of COVID, and we're like, 'No, why? We got perfect weather."
"Then we finished that event on Sunday night, and Glen Cromwell called me on Sunday night and said, 'Hey, how'd everything go?"
"I said, 'Great man, I've got everything done."
"It was just a weird phone call. I think he knew it was coming down, and that next day everything started drop, NBA, NHL, just in order, boom, boom, boom. And of course, he went to Gainesville, and that obviously didn't happen. And then the world came to an end within a week."
Bowser said the success of the 2020 event was the primary impetus for the track's survival during the downtime.
"Everything that was generated from that event, we dumped back in the track, keeping the place going and paying rent and keeping full-time guys employed," Bowser explained. "We didn't miss anything. We paid rent; we paid all of our expenses, all of our fixed costs that are coming in every month. Whether you're open or closed, they don't take "I'm closed" for an excuse. So we paid all those bills.
Bowser said the experience taught him a lot about budgeting, even though, admittedly, he was already well versed in the exercise.
"We've always been pretty budget-minded," Bowser admitted. "We're pretty simple here. My dad and I are the board of directors. And if we want to do something, we go, "Well, do we have money in the bank?" "Yes." "Okay. Let's do it." That's it. That's how simple our board meetings are. But that really changed everything.
"Because you had to budget for expenses that there's no revenue coming in. That's a whole different approach. You're not used to being shut down for six months, and we were. So that was weird."
In 2021, with a measure of Covid restrictions lifted, Bowser and his team were able to resume the March Meet, albeit in May with modest success. Due to restrictions, it wasn't the best situation for the fans, but Bowser said the track had to do what it had to do.
"We got a little creative and made people pay for people that weren't going to be there," Bowser said. "We didn't sell a single day pass. We sold multi-day passes. And we let them know that 'Hey, when you sit down that grandstand, because we're limited to one-third capacity, when you sit down to your left, look to your right, no one's sitting there because you paid for them not to be here."
"I mean, you paid us enough to fill up our one-third capacity. So you earned the right to come and not have people sitting around you. We consciously made that effort to let people sit in a spread-out environment, which was required of us by the state. You couldn't be close to each other. It had to be six feet apart. So we were still following the six-foot rule back then.
Let the record reflect Bowser wasn't a fan of the 2021 requirements.
"You had to do what you had to do," Bowser said. We had a choice. Don't cooperate with the state of California and ... and there's things we couldn't do. We couldn't sell alcohol. The state wouldn't issue a liquor license for that weekend, so we had no beer sales on [inaudible 00:04:09] only doing weekend out here having a drag race in 97-degree weather
"I think our local liquor stores and grocery stores around us, they made up for it. So we got through the event. We had a really good event, all things considered. We weren't limited by participants, which they were fine with that. They mean a state. We just couldn't have spectators standing and sitting in a closed environment."
And all of this time, Bowser believed rain was the biggest enemy of a drag strip. A pandemic taught him otherwise.
"We can overcome rain," Bowser said. "There's no one regulating that. I mean, we can get out there, and we fix it. We know how to fix it. We don't have someone standing over us saying, 'Well, you can only do it this way or only do it that way."
"If that happens, we go out there and we dry the track, we move on.
"But in this instance it was like, we couldn't do anything. We had to follow state guidelines that didn't translate across the board. There were guidelines that were probably good for some but not good for others and most of them weren't real good for us."
The cost of the pandemic went beyond lost ticket sales and revenue. Longtime track naming rights sponsor Auto Club pulled its sponsorship of almost 17 years.
"I get it," Bowser said. "Travel came to a screeching halt, right? In all forms, whether you're driving on the road and having ... where you need to service from Auto Club or traveling cruises or airfare through Auto Club. All that came to a screeching halt. So when Auto Club is sending out refund checks to these customers, that's not a good sign."
This weekend, Bowser is ready to get back to the regular grind.
"It will be a welcomed return," Bowser said.
