Murphy Salvages the Trip

A forgettable Friday left Pleasant Hill, MO's Terry Murphy feeling not so pleasant. In fact, he was wondering if the 1,100-mile, one-way trip to Virginia Motorsports Park was worth it

The payoff, though, was delivered in a major way in Saturday's fourth and final Pro Nitrous qualifying session for the ADRL Speedtech U.S. Drags III.

Suffering from starting-line nitrous fires, Murphy failed to make a pass in his first three qualifying passes on Friday, but rebounded Saturday and advanced to the second round of eliminations in Pro Nitrous.

"They call this going from the outhouse to the penthouse," Murphy said.

Murphy undoubtedly likes this view better.

He joked on Saturday of his car being overtaken by "electrical Gremlins" the previous day, but the problem took longer than he'd hoped to resolve.

The coil wires continued to short out — but only under a load — when Murphy reached the starting line, leaving him sitting there instead of the desired finish line.

"We just didn't know what to do," Murphy said. "We just had to sit back and gather our thoughts."

He got considerable help from fellow racers, including nitrous racing legend Charles Carpenter, and turned it around with an impressive qualifying pass on Saturday, going from 25th to 12th in 3.96 seconds at 184.45 mph.

"Just to make the field was great," Murphy said. "That was relieving. We're trying to do as good as we can."

That mindset got a significant boost as Murphy ran an impressive first-round race with a solid 3.97 at 187.18 to knock off Greg Godwin.

"There's a lot of good side-by-side racing and the field is so tight, but we're going to fight," Murphy said.

His weekend finally came to a close in the quarter-finals, however, as the gremlins apparently returned to shut Murphy's ཻ Corvette off at the end of its burnout against Burton Auxier.

"After the way the weekend started I can't be too disappointed," he said later. "At least we got to race and make it worth the trip."

(ADRL/Richards photos) May 22, 2010 - 2:19 PM