Bristol sand trap ride gave Buddy Hull another dose of Funny Car experience
A trip into the sand trap two weeks ago in Bristol gave second-year Funny Car driver Buddy Hull an unscheduled chance to check another item off of the “I’m a real Funny Car driver now” list, and he thinks he's all the better for it.
A trip into the sand trap two weeks ago in Bristol gave second-year Funny Car driver Buddy Hull an unscheduled chance to check another item off of the “I’m a real Funny Car driver now” list after his two braking parachutes failed to deploy after his second-round loss to Paul Lee
Hull expertly guided the team’s Mooneyes entry into the Bristol Dragway sand trap and rode it all the way to the catch net.
Although the impact with the net cracked the chassis and damaged the body, the good news for the team was that they had a backup chassis in Antron Brown’s shop in Brownsburg, Ind., and are back in action for this weekend’s American Rebel Light Virginia NHRA Nationals.
“We’re still not really sure why the ‘chutes didn’t come out,” said Hull. “There are a number of things that can cause that. Sometimes there's the perfect storm in which the car [decelerates] at the exact time that the ‘chutes come out, which creates a vacuum. There could have been a situation with the pilot chutes, but ours were only a race or two old, so that’s probably not it.
Regardless, at that moment, you don’t have time to wonder what happened. If you're a mindful driver, you've exercised that in your head thousands of times before; that's your job. Your job, first and foremost, is to keep your opponent safe. You can't always do what you need to do and potentially put your opponent in a spot. The second thing is you cannot panic. But when you're looking at the catch net doing about 150 miles an hour, It's a weird feeling, brother. I'm here to tell you.
“It's really bouncy at Bristol, so you can only give it so much brake or it gets to really bouncing, and that's really a slow way to stop. The next two things you have to do are to go into the sand dead straight, and you’ve got to let go of the steering wheel because it might break your arm, break your wrist, or whatever. You have to be disciplined enough in your mind to let go and tuck in as tight as you can and go for the ride. That's what I did. I don’t mean not to brag, but I feel like I did all the right things. I did everything that I was told to do in my head 1,000 times.”
The scrappy Jim Dunn Racing team rebounded and is ready to continue its strong momentum after back-to-back first-round upsets of reigning Funny Car world champ Austin Prock. After scoring just one round win in 20 starts last season, the team is clearly on a roll with three wins lights in the first eight events.
“It's pretty cool,” Hull admired, “and here's the thing: You want to run them again, right? When you get that momentum, you want to run them again. We’re really hitting a stride here, and I can’t wait to buckle in again this weekend.”