Is this luck or just good driving?
The 74-year old Dunlap, driving the High Speed Motorsports front engine Top Fueler, had qualified second in the show with a 5.71 at 232 mph, and advanced through the opening stanza with a 5.80 at a slowing 215 mph to down Ron August in round one, setting up a second round matchup with Adam Sorokin. There, Dunlap put on fine display just how unpredictable the small-tire, throwback machines can be — and in turn, how exciting they are to watch — when his mount drifted toward the centerline near half track, setting off an exciting chain of events that no doubt had the attention of everyone in the shutdown area and even has our butts puckered up here at home, two days after the fact.
Near the 1,000-foot mark, Dunlap finally crossed the centerline, and in an attempt to get the dragster way from Sorokin, corrected back into his lane, collecting the mile per hour cone in the process. The momentum put Dunlap into a hair-raising drift back into his lane at well over 200 mph. He wasn’t out of the woods at that point however, as the dragster sashayed and finally climbed up and onto the concrete K-rail, sending the track officials scattering for safety.
Adding to the face value of a ticket for anyone in the vicinity of the finish line, all was not well in the other lane either, as Sorokin encountered engine damage and an oil fire that had him sliding around beyond the finish line, as well. But his 5.70 was still enough to dispatch the sideways Dunlap and his 5.83.
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