Hansen’s Tale No Laughing Matter On ‘Fun Meter’
Neil Hansen has all the excitement he can handle when steering his jet dragster down the quarter-mile drag strip in a little more than 6 seconds at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour.
So Hansen hopes the “fun meter” doesn’t go off the scale like it did a few weeks ago when he and his “Brain Damage” jet dragster appear at Saturday’s 22nd Annual Lilac Funny Car Championships at Spokane Raceway Park.
Hansen will match-race the “High Stakes” jet funny car of Claude Wirkus and be joined by a sizeable field of funny cars and dragsters for SRP’s first major race of the season. Gates open at 3 p.m. with eliminations at 7:30.
The 37-year-old Spokane truck driver tells of his most harrowing experience to date driving the ground-bound missiles known as jet dragsters.
It was April 5, while qualifying for the jet car show at Sacramento Raceway Park, when Hansen had one of his parachutes deploy prematurely and burn.
To compound things, the chute-release lever jammed the fuel shutoff as Hansen hit the 300-mph mark and was still accelerating as the end of the track approached.
“I was somewhere between 315 and 325 when I realized what was wrong,” Hansen said.
Hansen estimates he was at close to 350 mph when he finally got the fuel shut off and popped his remaining chute.
Amazingly, the car stopped before the end of the track.
“I went further down the Sacramento track, under power, than anyone ever has,” Hansen said.
Word traveled quickly of the incident and gained Hansen a spot in a segment of “Real TV,” which will air later this month.
Hansen, who graduated from the weekly bracket racing program at SRP, and who has been in the jet car only about a year, composed himself. The next day he won the jet dragster class with a run of 6.43 (251 mph).
Modifieds open at Stateline
The Northwest Modifieds are headliners Saturday night at Stateline Speedway as they open their rain-delayed schedule.
“(Steve) Lovitt, (Greg) Ochs and (Stan) Cafferty are going to be tough to beat,” said defending series champion Jeff Zimmerman of Spokane.
Joining the modifieds in the 6 p.m. show are the Hobby Cars and the Sportsman class.
Northwest hydro dates shift
The traditional back-to-back unlimited hydroplane race dates in Tri Cities and Seattle are no more.
The second-year race in Kelowna, British Columbia, will now follow the July 27 running of the Columbia Cup on Aug. 3. Seattle’s Texaco Cup at Seafair will move to Aug. 10.
For at least the last quarter-century of hydro racing at Columbia Park, the boats have raced in Tri Cities on the last weekend of July and in Seattle the first weekend in August.
The change in the schedule is linked to the return of the Navy’s Blue Angels, whose only open date in their schedule was the weekend of Aug. 9-10.
Pit stops
The Pro Outlaw Kart Racing Association will run its usual weekly race tonight at the Spokane County ORV Park’s fifth-mile clay track starting at 6… . Spokane Raceway Park’s stock car program will not be run this week because of the Lilac Race… . Stateline Speedway will hold the season’s first Demolition Derby Sunday starting at 1 p.m. Fans are asked to bring non-perishable food to benefit the area food bank… . The Challenge Series, featuring dirt track drivers from tracks at Republic and Northport, shifts to Republic’s Eagle Track on Saturday starting at 2 p.m… . The Northwest Off-Road Racing Association (NORRA) will return to its Sand Drag and Mud Bog schedule Saturday and Sunday at the Spokane County ORV Park in Airway Heights for the Butch Mathews Memorial race… . Autosports Northwest will run its second Autocross event of the season Sunday at Spokane Raceway Park… . The NASCAR Northwest Tour visits Wenatchee Valley Raceway on Saturday night with racing set for 8 p.m… . Rod Hoerner was runner-up in Super Gas at last Saturday’s continuation of the NHRA Division Six race at Mission, British Columbia, losing in a double breakout finish to Ken Heard of Portland. Hoerner’s son, Todd, also clinched the TRW Sportsman Challenge championship in Super Gas and will represent the division at Columbus, Ohio, on June 14… . Mica, Washington’s Joe Kopp will try to turn his AMA Grand National Dirt Track Series luck around Saturday night on the half-mile race at Harrington, Del. Kopp suffered mechanical problems at the series opener at Daytona and his last race at Parkersburg, W.Va., was rained out.
xxxx