Night Moves |
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Hilton, Westerfield and Seraphine take nitro titles at Firebird Raceway’ s 55th Bi-Mart Nightfire Nationals By Rick Bain |
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Fifty-five years after Twig Zeigler won the first nitro title at the inaugural Nightfire Nationals, a pack of nitro beasts descended on the grounds of Firebird Raceway to do battle in three nitro classes, each looking to take home that coveted Diamond Wally trophy. While the temps were pushing high 90s all weekend, the overflow crowd packed the stands for Friday and Saturday night nitro action under the lights. The heavy hitters from the NHRA Heritage Series were on site in full force, with a whopping 27 nitro entries split between Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Fuel Altered, plus a dozen of the West’ s best Pro Mods. In Funny Car action, Shane Westerfield led qualifying with a 5.60 shot in the Bardahl Camaro, while the hot-of-late Jerry Espeseth Atlas entry landed No. 2 with a great 5.65. Current points leader Nathan Sitko’ s Bubble-Up Pacemaker Firebird and Norwalk Blue Suede Cruise winner Eily Stafford in the“ California Hustler” rounded out the top four with a 5.69 and 5.73, respectively.
Come elimination time, Westerfield lived up to his reputation as a premier nitro pilot, running 5.59 on a single in round one, then masterfully
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pedaling his way to victory with 6.74 and 6.97 passes over Todd Plate and Jon Capps to make the final. Sitko, sporting the retro livery of the famed“ 240 Gordie” Bonin Pacemaker( Bonin won this race in 1980) downed Tony Jurado in the semis after a 5.78 bye run in round 2, to set the stage for the final. While the matchup was the same as last year’ s Funny Car final, the results this time were different as Westerfield’ s on-point 5.77 took down the solid-but-second 6.01 by Sitko. Last year’ s NHRA Heritage Funny Car Champ, Shane Westerfield, has won his first 2026 NHRA Heritage series event... in August.
In Top Fuel action, the two heavyweight contenders, Tyler Hilton and Pete Kaiser, resumed their 2026 points chase battle. While Hilton stumbled at Bowling Green, the champ got off the deck at Norwalk with a big win and came to Boise with the ship righted. As expected, Hilton and Kaiser dominated qualifying with Hilton
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and the“ Great Expectations III” team blasting a fantastic 5.68 to take the top spot, followed by KFR’ s 5.77 clip. Bowling Green upstarts, the Revolution Top Fuel Team out of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, towed to Firebird to prove they are no one-trick pony. And prove it they did as Gerald Hangey hung an all-time best 5.84 at a jaw-dropping 262 mph on the board for the No. 3 spot. Bobby Cottrell, the man who has won the Nightfire Funny Car title four times, ran a Top Fuel personal best 250 mph pass in qualifying fourth with a 5.94. The field was rounded out by Austin“ Double A” Arnerich’ s 6.19.
In round one, Hangey took out Cottrell’ s upin-smoke pass with a booming 5.80 at 263.36, setting top speed of the meet, his best ET and mph to date. Kaiser downed a valiant effort by Arnerich, with a solid 5.88 over AA’ s best of show, a 6.00 at 231. Hangey’ s victory did not come without a cost as the Revolution team, with crew chief
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK BAIN |