EL MIRAGE  (As Ken Kelley saw it).  "I don't need no stinkin' points championship!" 
 
KELLEY - PRENTICE
 
Well, the Kelley-Prentice entry, (#120 BGMR) ran really well until  0.23  miles from the lights. 
Right up to when the blower (supercharger) said "bang" , and the belt said "ZZZZZIIINNNNGGGG", 
and we all said "Shiite"!. There was just a short flash fire that burned some wiring. Pete 
coasted through at 220 mph. We needed 234 to bump our record 1 mph and stay in the points race. 
(It's still theoretically possible to win, but unlikely).
 
I had watched the car go through the lights and left the starting line duties to crew member 
Andy Bartfay and Ray Trobee who was there to help.  I seldom get to watch my own car go down 
the course. I'm either driving the racecar or the pushtruck.  I drove over to the car when Pete 
pulled out to the right, signalling possible parts on the course or some other problem like a 
fire.  This alerts the safety vehicles to respond.
 
Thermocouple readings looked good.  Must have hung an intake valve open somehow.  For non-
gearheads, this allows the fire inside the combustion chamber to get into the intake manifold 
and ignite the air-fuel mixture, thus blowing the supercharger off the engine. The safety 
restraints restrict the distance the blower can go, and the weak aluminum manifold bolts are 
supposed to fail in tension (break) so that neither the manifold nor the blower is actually 
damaged. (Sometimes this doesn't work, and the blower explodes violently and the impellers and 
the case separates and the whole thing flies high in the air). This is more common with a nitro 
engine on high boost. (We run gasoline at 30# boost).
In our situation, everything was kosher EXCEPT one of the 8 bolts didn't break. A piece of the 
blower case broke instead. There are differing opinions as to whether to try to repair it or 
get a new case.  No hurry to decide; I have another blower.  We were considering going home to 
get the spare blower after the plugs looked OK and the oil filter was clean. It was only 9:30 
in the morning.  That is, the 1st 7 plugs looked OK. #8 had aluminum on it. That says we 
probably had a burned piston. We decided to call it a day.
 
LEGGITT - LINDSLEY
 
They had their nitro burning blown KB engine on KILL. Taking off from the starting line, it 
sounded like a Saturn V moon rocket (or maybe an atomic bomb). Tremendous power! Too much to 
get traction. The guys at the far end said they saw both sides of the car as it yawed back and 
forth trying to get a grip on the dirt. Larry finally shut it off.  They detuned it some and 
made a sec