Saturday found the cacklecars ready to rumble and the track full of fans. The weather had improved to really nice - it would be a fun day.

 

Gary Ritter of the Blood-Sweat & Nitro fame (left) did the tuning on the Warren Coburn & Miller car now owned by Mike Aaby (right)... in the seat is the one and only James Warren.

 

 

BankAmericar with original driver Don Ewald on its way to the Cacklefest.

 

Before the third and final pro qualifying session all the "live" cacklecars were arranged along the guardwall and up the push road in front of the spectator side stands. With racing continuing on the track the cars found their ways to a spot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dennis Prater, Dan Kaplan and Jay Carpenter with the Stellings & Hampshire car.

 

 

 

McCloud Bros.

 

Kol Johnson, Marc McCormack, Ron Johnson and Rick MacDonald

 

Don Ewald

 

Norm Weekly

 

 

James Warren ready to get in.

 

 

 

Art Chrisman

 

Bill Tidwell waiting in the Poachers.

 

 

Sonny Messner in his Swamp Rat III.

 

Don Ewald in the BankAmericar.

 

Mario Garcia got the set in the Mastercar.

 

Paul Rossi ready to get into the Yeakel Plymouth Spec.

 

 

Frank Baney, Jerry Bivens, Jim Rossi and Paul Rossi.

 

Cindy Gibbs ready in the Wynn's Spoiler.

 

Paula Roth in the Frantic 4 fueler.

 

Camera shy Tommy Ivo before climbing in the Barnstormer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Hirsch in his "Anaconda".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are not sure about some kind of bribe going on between John Ewald and Sonny Messner...something about not "rear ending" one of Ewald's cars maybe?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Yeakel car was one of the first to fire.

 

 

 

 

Dennis Prater gets ready to fire the S&H car with Jay Carpenter in the seat.

 

First to fire.... then the air was full of nitro.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always two of the loudest cacklers were Mario Garcia in the "Mastercar" and Don Ewald in the "BankAmericar".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tears of joy! i.e. eyes full of nitro.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art Chrisman ran the tank dry to end the show.

 

 

 

 

James Warren and Suzy Beebe

 

Head 'em out...

 

 

John and Don Ewald and the "BankAmericar", probably the most fired cackle car (over 600 nitro fire-ups to date) in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there is a car ready to cackle...Cindy Gibbs is always ready to jump in the seat... especially if it's the famous Warren-Coburn & Miller car

Steve Gibbs, John "Tarzan" Austin, James Warren, John Ewald, Tom West and Dan Kaplan lying to each other waiting for Sunday breakfast.

John Ewald's Maxed Out Racing camp was a virtual 3 meal a day restaurant with his better half Cynthia Carpenter and good bud John Jennings (who owns the motorhome) making sure everyone got fed.

 

Even JE got into the act "cooking" English muffins for breakfast.

 

This March Meet marked the welcome return of Bakersfield legend, Roger Coburn. Roger not only showed great interest in the WCM cacklecar, he was also involved in racing an NE-1 dragster. Following this fire-up he commented, "It never sounded that good when we had it." I think those of us who raced them in the day would disagree.

With Coburn looking on (below), Gary Ritter lit up the WCM car to give Cindy Gibbs her unprecedented fourth fire-up of of the weekend - her second in her new favorite seat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the second round of Top Fuel on Sunday, to celebrate his 50th March Meet, Steve Gibbs got his push start on the famous Famosa track thanks to John Ewald and his Mastercar. Gibbs did a masterful job of lighting on the fireup road, making the turn and idling all the way up the track. Simply looked like an old pro.

Gibbs fires up the Hemi to the applause of the thousands in attendance to show their appreciation for all that Steve Gibbs has done for the sport of drag racing.

For the first time in his 50 years of being part of the March Meet Steve Gibbs leaves the starting line in a top fuel dragster...the racers and fans were thrilled...but probably not as much as Steve was.

 

 

The final cackle of the weekend went to John Ewald's better half, Cynthia Carpenter in the BankAmericar.