Thunder Under The Lights!
The California Independent Funny Car Association (CIFCA) joined Nor Cal Nostalgia Drag Racing and the West Coast Pro Gas Association at Redding Dragstrip’s Thunder Under the Lights event on August 18th, 2018. This was CIFCA’s 4th race of their 5 race series presented by Good Vibrations Motorsports. The battle between James Maher & Tony Trimp continues for 1st place as they were exactly one round apart from each other going into the event.
Qualifying was a battle for position as the show was run on a Chicago Style format. Taking the two closest cars to the 7.50 index into the final. Maher ended up taking the System One #1 Qualifier position with a 7.57. Trimp followed suit finding the second-place position with a 7.65. Mike Troxel took the third spot with 7.44* breakout and Pete Ortiz flew into the fourth spot with a 6.82* at 208mph. Jim Currie had some help from the Outcast guys to get him into the fifth slot. Ortiz laid down a killer Burnout to take home the Mike’s Transmission’s Best Burnout award & he qualified for the Aeromotive Revolving Qualifier award. He also travelled the farthest to be at this event which earned him some extra cash from our friends over at Control Cables for the longest tow.
The format placed Maher and Trimp in the final against each other yet again. The fans were packed in the stands. Maher in his 1984, Hemi Powered, Ford Tempo against Harvey William’s Chevy Powered Corvette with Tony Trimp in the driver’s seat fired up under the lights. As the Christmas tree dropped Maher went .024 red handing Tony his second win of the year. The next pair out was Mike Troxel and Pete Ortiz. Troxel is currently sitting third and Ortiz is fifth in the Good Vibrations Motorsports point series. Ortiz had been chopping at the tree all day with killer lights. He didn’t back down in his last run against Troxel. Ortiz cut a killer .007 light to take the Enderle Fuel Injection Quick Reaction time award and then ran a 6.70 on the 7.50 index handing the win over to Troxel.
CIFCA has one race left coming up September 21-22 at Sacramento Raceway Park’s Governor’s Cup. Maher leads the Good Vibrations Motorsports by only 2 points over Trimp. There are 16 Funny Cars pre-registered for CIFCA’s last event. Including, Joacim, coming all the way from Sweden!
Special thanks to Shirlene Bramson, Bill Wood & Jake Wood for inviting us out as well as Wayne and Ralph Lederer for the great photos. Our program wouldn’t have run as smoothly without our race director, Diego Zuniga. We can’t wait to race there again next year. Thank you to all the teams who put on a killer performance for the fans. Last but not least, thank you to our sponsors for continuing the support our series. For more info follow us on Facebook or on our website at www.cifca.com
