Brian Barby picked the perfect time to flirt with perfection.
In the race for all the marbles in the box class final at the NITRO Big Bux drag racing meet Sunday at Rolling Mix Concrete Raceway, Barby hit the switch at just at the right time to legally launch his rear-engine rail down the quarter-mile strip.
Any quicker out of the gate and he would have red-lighted himself to instant disqualification territory.
Instead, Barby hung for the ride and stopped the clock in 7.659 seconds, a mere nine-thousands of a second longer than the predicted dial-in time he had displayed on his rocket on wheels.
Barby's superb run of his home track forced John Tiegen of Grande Prairie, Alta., and his red 1986 Camaro door-slammer to settle for second-place prize money.
Barby and Tiegen had already met twice this season in meet finals and the Prince George driver knew what he was in for as they lined up for the final race of the weekend.
"John's a deadly racer, he's beaten me a few times and I've beaten him a few times, and he said to me (Sunday) morning, 'See you in the finals,'" said Barby, who ran 7.65 seconds with a top sped of 174.83 miles per hour. "I knew I would have to come up with a good package to beat him and obviously I did."
Barby's front wheels crossed the sensor beam one-thousandth of a second after he got the green light, so in essence, he had what is known as a perfect light. That, combined with his close dial-in prediction was money in the bank for the 56-year-old racer. His win in the final Sunday gave him a $4,760 payday.
Barby got a bye into the finals, while Tiegen eliminated Jamie Towes of Dawson Creek in their semifinal.
"It's not like we hadn't met before, this is the third time this season him and I have been in the final, so we knew what to expect," said Tiegen, after he met up with Barby in the pits to congratulate him with a cool beverage.
"It was awesome. It could have gone either way, you're splitting hairs at the end."
In elapsed time bracket racing, box class race cars are equipped with electronic timing devices (delay boxes) which engage a transmission brake that releases when the clock counts down to zero. The driver of cars with quicker dial-ins (the predicted time it takes to travel down the quarter-mile track) punch in the dial-in time of the car they are racing.
Drivers in each the two lames have a tree light countdown system they use to time their starts. Each car launches when the top bulb is lit and if the "crosstalk" system is working properly, the time it takes to light the second bulb in the faster car lane will be slightly delayed, according to the difference in dial-in times. In the quarterfinal round Sunday against Elvis Hagon of Whitelaw, Alta., that light system failed to work properly for Barby and the two drivers were forced into a rerun, which Barby won when Hagon red-lighted.
On Saturday, Barby was out in the third round. He narrowly averted disaster when he came close to hitting one of the racer's crew members during on of his staging burnouts.
"He came walking out in front of me when I started to do my burnout so I had to shut my car down and swerve," said Bailey. "It was just something that happened and thank God I saw him and nobody got hurt. I happened to see him my peripheral and I shut it down. That kind of rattled me and I forgot to pull it down into low."
Dave Preston of Quesnel, driving a 1970 Chevy Nova, won the box final showdown Saturday. He and Kelsey Dufresne of Wembley, Alta., both broke out but Preston, who clocked 10.66 at 129.08 mph was closer to his 10.642 dial-in
In the no-box race class, Rocky Hoover of Prince George drove his '68 Barracuda to paydirt. He had a better start in his '73 Trans Am and beat Andy Closkey of Quesnel and his '65 Chevy in Sunday's final. Hoover posted am 11.143 ET at 117.73 mph. On Saturday, Brian Bailey of Beaverlodge, Alta., beat Dale Strocen in the no-box final. Both no-box winners were presented cheques for $1,980.
The two-day meet drew 100 pre-registered vehicles and several more entered the fray later to take a crack and the big money. The junior dragster division drew 23 entries and the Morton sisters from Fort St. John - Madison and Kaelie - each went home with $1,000 cheques. Madison beat Daylen Miller of Fort St. John in Saturday's final and Kaelie outraced Ryan O'Connor of Fort St. John for bragging rights on Sunday.
