Weekend Race Recap
Friday
The Thunder Nationals roared into Durham, NH Friday night for an all Grave Digger event. It was Digger in the Wheelie, Donut, Freestyle and Racing competitions. The only thing Randy Brown didn't win was Quad Wars. “It is a good thing to call back home to the main man and tell Dennis we won it all. Sometimes I have to make the call when things donut go our way and he is not a happy camper." Anderson should be very happy now with a racing world championship and his trucks doing incredible on both the Monster Jam and Thunder Nationals series.
Quad Wars saw Team Maine and Team New Hampshire go at it all night long. In the first heat Maine was the clear winner with team captain Kris Butter showing no respect officials or fans. In heat two team New Hampshire was the winner in a hard fought battle. The final was won by Maine in a close contest but when Maine's captain said some unkind things about the woman on NH team it got ugly. “This is a mans sport and women donut belong on the track,” Butter said in a post race interview. Team NH took exception to that remark and to the delight of the fans challenged the Maine team member to a winner take all shoot out. In the end NH was the winner with both teams vowing to return on Saturday afternoon to settle their differences.
Jody Donnally and his BMX stunt team made their first visit to Durham and brought the fans to their feet several times with 360’s, helicopters and superman seat grabs the likes of which had only been seen on TV buy the enthusiastic crowd.
Competition results:
Truck Wheelie Donut Freestyle
Bad News 22 30 23
Thrasher 20 13 21
Eradicator 26 24 26
American Guardian 24 29 29
Grave Digger 28* 30* 30*
Digger won the cheer-off in the donut contest over Bad News
Racing Results:
Round One:
Eradicator over Bad News
Grave Digger bye run
American Guardian over Thrasher
Round Two:
Eradicator over American Guardian
Grave Digger beat fast looser Bad News
Final: Grave Digger beat Eradicator
Saturday 2PM
What a difference 24 hours make. Friday night Grave Digger could do no wrong in Durham, NH Saturday afternoon he could do nothing right. Grave Digger failed to impress the judges in the wheelie, donut and freestyle competitions. After breaking in the first half the crew worked feverishly to come back for racing. Although Digger and the crew worked hard in racing but the mighty American Guardian driven by Rick Raab was too much for the black and green legend.
The pre-Easter event also featured Quad Wars with the battle between Team Maine and Team New Hampshire continuing from the night before. Again Team NH pulled the win in the final. Team NH again showed how a multi gender team was able to stand up against one of the toughest all male teams in the nation. This could signal the beginning of more women racing in the Quad Wars ranks.
Competition results:
Truck Wheelie Donut Freestyle
Bad News 20 30 21
Thrasher 23 22 24
Eradicator 29 25 26
American Guardian 25 28 29
Grave Digger 28 29 8
Racing results:
Round One:
American Guardian bye
Thrasher beat Bad News
Grave Digger over Eradicator
Round Two:
American Guardian beat fast looser Eradicator
Grave Digger over Thrasher
Final:
American Guardian over Grave Digger
Rick Raab of American Guardian said in an interview early in the event that he was going to turn it up a bit against Grave Digger. The thoughts and comments by Raab we echoed by Andy Slifco of Eradicator. If the intention was to reverse the fortunes of the night before for Grave Digger it worked. Grave Digger ended the afternoon with only a promise that things would change for the evening event.
Saturday 8PM
The monsters of the United States Hot Rod Association ended the Thunder Nationals season Saturday night the same way they started it back in January, with a bang.
It was time for Grave Digger to redeem his reputation in Durham but he could not succeed totally. While Digger driven by Randy Brown was able to win the Wheelie, Freestyle and race competition he could not get past Bruce Haney and the Bad News truck in the donut shootout for a clean sweep.
Bruce Haney and Randy Brown both got scores of 23 from the judges but Brown backed Digger into the dashers and officials deducted points from the score giving Bad News and Haney the win.
Since there were two shows in Durham on Saturday the drivers and crews worked through the afternoon to keep the trucks running to top form. The one thing nobody could correct was the blown tire on American Guardian. It looked as if Guardian would not be back for racing due to the lack of a backup tire. Randy Brown and the Grave Digger team came to the rescue by lending Guardian a tire for the rest of the evening. It ended up being American Guardian and Grave Digger in the race final. Grave Digger won and in the post event interview said, “All I could think was what would Dennis Anderson say of Guardian beat me with my own tire?” As it turned out Brown did not have to make that phone call but it was very close.
Quad Wars was won by Team New Hampshire much to the delight of the Durham fans. The night ended with BMX Freestyle, Monster Racing and Quad Wars promising to be the topic of conversation around many Easter tables on Sunday afternoon.
