At the rain-delayed Lordco Auto Parts NHRA National Open Double Header at the Eagle Motorplex on July 12th, 2008 (original race date: May 30th – June 1st) Justin Gibson and Pete Bereditsch each snagged the ‘Holy Grail’ of drag racing trophies. Nice!

Justin’s win came in Jr Digger with a hard-on-the-brakes 9.24 on his 9.07 dial while Chloe Carre’s .47 was a liitle to quick for her 10.48 prediction. Great work by Team SIAH’s youngest member! We promise… a shirt is coming; seriously!

The Dragon Slayer’s Pete’s Wally was the fruit of yet another all Surrey In A Hurry Super Pro final round. His 0.016 RT got the jump on Al Quigley’s relatively sleepy 0.039 in his 2 year old new RH Racecars Mustang. Al’s 9.710 on a 9.69 wasn’t enough to get around the founder of ‘80 Black Camaro Eliminator’s 11.799 on a 11.78 lap.

Hey Quig: Did you find where the ~0.040 delay is hiding in your ‘box yet? Some might take that as a burn, but it’s not meant to be. The normally “Quick Quig” really seems to think there’s some bonus numbers stuck in his new delay box.

Dave Jung was doing everything he could to make it a three-fer with a win in Pro. Unfortunately, he had to settle for the much less desireable third-place ‘Whalley‘ instead.

By the way; in case anyone wants to know to become a member of Team Surrey In A Hurry? Sure, bribes work… but you go out and win a Wally or two and we’ll probably just claim you as our own!

SIAH founding member Zak Clarke and his Baretta have been on an absolute tear the season. He was looking to add to his slate of wins and bring home the Team’s third Wally of the July 12th / 13th weekend at the ‘Plex .

In what is about to be the longest sentance ever put down, Zak paired up with the bitchin’ Camaro driven by Lane Wooley for the 12th Annual Aurora Electronics Night Drags and Christmas in July final round of the Canada West Doorslammers class sponsored by Surrey In A Hurry. Whew! Still with me? Anyways, It was Baretta against Berlinetta, and the race was over in the first hundredths of a second… literally.

Zak scored a 0.020-something RT while Lane, in the other lane, put up a 0.150-ish light. Unfortunately though, that’s not why the race was over so soon. It seems that after only 800 or so passes, Zak’s ring and pinion decided to expire. Lane lifted at the 100 foot mark to ensure the win, despite another team’s diminutive crew member chanting “Run out, Lane… Run it OUT, Lane… RUN IT OUT, LANE…” hoping for a breakout mistake. Oh wel… you win some you loose some. At least the prize money for second place was $100 dollars bills, not like the stack of tens they paid out for the win.

As Zak and the Baretta enjoyed a slow tow back to the pits, Pro winner Corey Thompson dove across thetrack wall to bring out a frosty refreshment. As they say: Win or Lose, Hit the Booze!

Hey, speaking of Zak, Corey and diminutive crew members… It shows that getting a good night’s sleep before the race is a smart thing to do. Seems that those guys, plus Brian Barbie and a few other dedicated racers benefitted from the rest by all but owning the final rounds of Pro, Super Pro and Door Dinger. I wonder how those animals that made the drunken racket until 7:30 in the morning fared on race day. Oh… wait a minute…

What a couple of weeks it has been for Team Surrey In A Hurry! First the info came in about Zak’s three wins and last loser runner up in back to back weekends. Now another phenominal performance has our own Joe “Top Wop” Mura walking away with a PAIR of Wally’s… and he didn’t even steal them. Bada Bing!

Smokin’ Joe went two for two this past June 28th and 29th, 2008 at the Bremerton Raceway stop of the NHRA Northwest National Open Series. On sabato (Saturday), Joe whacked Al Chin for the Super Pro win, while Marc Heritage was taken care of in the domenica (Sunday) Top Wop Comp final. For details on the weekend, check out Joe’s notes later on.

To add to the Team’s almost complete domination over the past couple of weeks, Surrey In A Hurry’s youngest member, Justin Gibson missed a Junior Dragster Wally by that much on Sunday. Great job Justin! Just hope you didn’t get beat by a girl again… Ha! I couldn’t resist; sorry!

Here’s a copy of the e-mail the Top Wop sent with the weekend at Bremerton details:

The site: Bremerton Raceway.
The event: National open Series Race #3 & #4.

Saturday I entered S/pro and Top Comp. lost 1st round in T/C by a margin of victory of .0025  so I continued on in S/pro taking out S/pro points leader Jason Gibson in the 3rd round and continued to the final where I met up with Al Chin. He was -006 red and 9.527 on 9.54 dial I was .009 green 7.566 on a 7.57 dial and got the easy win.

On Sunday lost 1^st round in S/pro. My .009 light to his .181 light but my car wouldn’t shift into high gear (“eh, whadda you gonna do, it’s a Cadillac forget about it”) (quote from Donny Brasco) so I continued on in Top Comp to the final where I met up with good buddy Marc Heritage. I was .014 on the tree and 7.596 on a 7.60 dial and got the win. He was .022 on the tree and 7.561 on a 7.57 dial.

So I guess you could call it two Wally’s for the Wop. At least 1 win was in Top Wop  eliminator.

On another note, Justin Gibson runnered up in junior dragster on Sunday in Bremerton as well. I wish I had the photos of the winners circle to send in with me and the gibson family as we are in three of them (2 wins for me and 1 r/u for Justin)

Thanks.  Joe “Top Wop” Mura

And for those that might be offended by the colorful use of Italio-centric terminology in this article? Fuhgettaboutit!