July 18, 2018 UNFC Newsletter
With four of five races completed in the 2018 Good Vibrations United Nitro Funny Car Championship Series, Bobby Cottrell driving for the Austin & O’Brien team has taken a commanding lead in the point standings.
Winning the first three events, Cottrell has posted a total of 292 points to second place Tim Boychuk’s 195 and Jason Rupert’s third place 186. Following a victory in the April 13-14 Tucson, Az. Series opener, Cottrell piloted the sleek green Bardahl Camaro to back-to-back wins in the Northwest Doubleheader in Spokane, Wa. (July 4) and Seattle, Wa. (July 6-7). The following week (July 13-14-15) Boychuk was the winner in Edmonton, Alberta, Ca. to close the point gap. The “double point” series finale will be contested August 17-18 at Spokane County Raceway. Rupert, returning from being sidelined with a broken ankle, posted low elapsed times in both Spokane (5.684) and Seattle (5.627), but still couldn’t beat Cottrell in two close contests.The side-by-side race between Cottrell and Rupert in the Spokane semifinals was decided on a hole shot with Cottrell’s 0.68 light giving him the win over Rupert’s .106 reaction time. Both cars ran near identical elapsed times…5.687 for Cottrell and 5.684 for Rupert. Cottrell had a single in the Spokane finale when Stephen Densham broke on the starting line. It was virtually the same at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wa. three nights later as Cottrell narrowly beat Rupert in the finale 5.69 to 5.72. Rupert’s reaction time of .049 was good enough to give him the lead in the Weld Wheel Challenge. Qualifying at Kent, Wa. Pacific Raceways was the quickest in UNFC history with the bump spot for the eight-car show at 5.891. In all 10 of the 13 cars on the grounds ran in the 5s with Rupert’s 5.627 on top. Best ever Heritage Funny Car times were recorded by Wally Giavia (5.66) and Billy Morris (5.69). Other qualifying times included Cottrell (5.69), Mark Sanders (5.74), Densham (5.84), Boychuk (5.86) and Kris Krabill (5.89). Bill Windham (5.94), Geoff Monise (5.95), Tim Nemeth (6.04), Chris Davis (6.16) and Justin Taylor (6.80) failed to qualify. Attached you’ll find the current point standings, and a wonderful video presentation of the two Washington races by Dyan Lover.
Quite simply,
UNITED NITRO FUNNY CARS
is here to advocate and advance the class of todays "NITRO" Funny Cars.
"It's go forward, go backward, or get the HELL out of the way"
August 24, 2018 UNFC Newsletter
And so it’s on to Bakersfield and the California Hot Rod Reunion (Oct. 20-22) to wrap up the 2018 Nostalgia/Heritage season. The initial five-race Good Vibrations UNFC Championship Series was completed last weekend in Spokane with a large crowd watching Bobby Cottrell in the Bucky Austin and Mike O’Brien Camaro once again dominate the field. Cottrell piloted the sleek green Bardahl machine to its fourth UNFC win and posted low elapsed time of every single round culminating with a 5.69 low ET of the weekend in defeating Wally Giavia and the G-Men in the final. In total Cottrell rang up 488 total points to dominate the Good Vibrations Series beating second place finisher Tim Boychuk by over 200 points. When all the smoke had cleared, Good Vibrations and the UNFC handed out over $150,000 in cash and plans are already underway for the 2019 series with race dates to be announced in the near future.
Final Good Vibrations UNFC Championship Point Standings
Bobby Cottrell 488
Tim Boychuk 263
Jason Rupert 260
Wally Giavia 243
Billy Morris 212
Bill Windham 184
Stephen Densham 142
Mark Sanders 89
Chris Davis 86
Geoff Monise 75
Matt Bynum 56
Kris Krabill 41
Ryan Hodgson 20
Elaine Sellers 10
Justin Taylor 10
Tim Nemeth 10