After finishing the car repair at 3 AM the team was back at it Sunday morning. Their first round opponent was the 2017 champion, Jim Murphy and the current champ, Mendy Fry. What had all eyes on this match up was the fact that Murphy was getting quicker on every run. Fry on the other hand had been plagued with major problems all weekend. She never got to the finish line in qualifications and had to pass on Q3. Add to that the fact that Shelar's trailer computer crashed after the morning warm-up so he had no data.

1320 feet later Fry dropped jaws big time carding the quickest and fastest NTF run in history. Talk about pulling a rabbit from the hat. Despite a deep stage, Fry stopped the clocks with a 5.518 at 265.43. Murphy carded a game 5.801 at 231.12 and wasn't even close.

After two disastrous runs in a row, a new world record wasn't on anybody's radar. Well, except for Shelar who was confident with his tune-up and hoping his car was done misbehaving.

The second pair of the round had history written all over it. In the previous round Mendy Fry had lowered the NTF record to a 5.518. Car owner Tom Shelar was sure it would have been a forty had she not deep staged. With that in mind, Fry would not be deep staging on this pass.

Williamson got a big jump (0.051 to 0.219) leaving the champ playing catch-up. In Fry's defense, Shelar had her stage as shallow as possible for a reason. And the last thing she wanted was a red light. Had Williamson run a personal best by a bunch, the plan may have backfired.

Williamson's 5.853 at 234.09 wasn't a bad pass but in a different zip code compared to Fry.

During routine maintaince it was found that the new throttle cable that was installed after the rearend debacle was bound up. Shelar, Fry and even Whit Bazemore were trying to find the problem but after 15 or so minutes of removing/replacing the linkage etc. they just took the new cable out and installed it. This would lead to strike three.

After watching Mendy Fry run the two quickest runs in NTF history everyone on the property had her the odds-on favorite to seal the deal. The Champion team knew full well they didn't have an answer to another 5.49 run. All this being true, once again we don't race on paper.

Starter Brian Taylor flipped the switch and both drivers had their right foot on the bell housing. Sorokin left, Fry did not.

With Fry sitting dead in the water, Sorokin carded an abbreviated 5.844 at 212.16 to capture his second March Meet win.

All the while the baffled and greatly disappointed High Speed crew were left to push a dejected Mendy Fry back to the staging area. Just when they thought the weekend was done with gremlins, a 50 cent screw could have cost the team a March Meet win and possibly another 5.40 record pass.

How hard was it to know you may have lowered the NTF record even further had it not been for a 50 cent screw that vibrated out of the throttle linkage.

Fry was left to ponder what could have been. March Meet final rounds have been the only chink in her armor two years in a row.

Event Summary and Thanks from Tom Shelar.

What a weekend. I want to thank all the team for all their hard work getting thru an extremely challenging race. You people inspire me to do my best and I’m proud of everyone of you.

We may have lost the race in the final but we won the war and overcame so much. Testing went good until that ORing got loose in the fuel system . We thrashed for 8 days and got everything back together for the race.

Thursday test looked good. Friday Q1 we had a coupler come loose at 3.5 seconds and blew it up again. We rebuilt it and went to Q2 and had a rearend mounting bracket fail and took out the brakes . Mendy did the smart thing and slid it into the sand . We had to take the car down to the chassis and rebuild it again . Bruce Dyda stepped up as he always has for us and did the long drive back to Torrance to get us the parts we needed to race on Sunday .

Sunday after the warmup the trailer computer crashed so no run data to look at.

The round one run was fantastic and set a new national record with a 5.51@265 . Wow.

The second round I put .010 of head gasket on and pulled 6 grams off the clutch to calm it down and it went quicker with the first 5.40 for a AAFD.

The throttle cable was bound up for some reason so we put the old one back on for the finial . I worked on the linkage for 15 mins and never bothered to check the bolt that came loose in the finial.

We managed to set a new National record . We made history by being the first AAFD car in the 5.40s .

We lost in the finial to a quality team and Congrats to Adam and Bobby and Tony and the entire Champion Speed Shop team . They worked hard and earned it.

Remember last year we lost in the final at the March Meet and we went on to win the Championship. The goal is to win the Championship . With you people I believe we can accomplish that goal .

The list is long :
Walt Stevens
Donnie Ho Anderson
Kyle Wakefield
Erik McMarrow
Nick SanAngelo
Mario Campos
Jake Dungan
Alanna Kuhn
Al Renteria Jr
Frank Hedge Jr
Larry Shelar
Don Ewald

A special shot out to my brother Rick Shelar who has made it possible for us to race without him at the track this year but he is always with us every time we turn around to do something because he got us organized and made us all aware how important the small details are . Miss you bro.

And the ladies that support us:
Maria Stevens
Angela Reeves
Manda May Wakefield
Leslie McMarrow
Arlene Eliason
Molly Shelar
Carol Dobson

Oh ya and our Driver
Mrs. Mendy Fry the quick chick

Thanks to our sponsors for the continued support .

Donovan Engineering

Sonny Diaz and the Cam2 Oil group.

CP/Arias pistons

MGP Connecting Rods

SCE Gaskets

Reid Rockers / Darrel and Tami
Thank you both for all your help.

Next adventure is scheduled for June 1 at Córdoba then back to Bowling Green to defend our title.

I’m humbled by all the support.
All my best
Tom Shelar

Page One - Qualifying