It’s the last major, and certainly largest, doorslammer drag race of the year this weekend in Vegas for Street Car Super Nationals. From 46 Pro Street to 26 Outlaw 8.5 cars, the classes are packed. With cool, overcast weather look for some record breaking runs this weekend.

This all couldn’t be possible without our event coverage sponsor Mickey Thompson Tires. Please take a minute to go check out their latest wheel and tire technology via their website.

It's race day with Pro Street in the lanes! Needless to say, we all hope that the day goes smoother from a race day perspective.

Eliminations Round 1 Results

Eliminations Notes

Steve Matusek's weekend would come to an end when he would suffer massive tire shake right off the hit, which sent him into a violent spin into the wall. Matusek did a good job slowing the car down before the hit and only suffered minor damage.

Concluding his burnout, Mike Bowman was unable to get his car into reverse and had to abort his run.

Jose Gonzalez' Pro Mod runs like a true bracket car, continuing along with the 5.7X passes which netted him the fastest run of first round. Since Walsh was eliminated in round two, our current prediction is that the Pro Street final round will be Coughlin and Gonzalez.

While we all figured it was going to be a Don Walsh Jr versus Jose Gonzalez final round race in Pro Street, Walsh's day was unexpectedly cut short in the second round when a turbo flange clamp came off during his burnout. This gave the win to Clint Hariston who ran his best run of the weekend with a 6.070 at 251.16 mph

Jeff Lutz' beautiful Camaro would succumb to wall damage after oil from Lutz' breather ended up under his wheels. This gave Rob Cacioppo the win with a 6.148 at 229.98 mph.

Glidden's backfire during qualifying yesterday would be an unfortunate preview to what came today during the first round of Outlaw 10.5. At around the eighth mile marker, smoke could be seen trailing out of Glidden's Mustang. Stopping on the top end, the safety crew would have to put out the engine fire for him. Glidden suffered from a pair of melted carbs and was unable to get the car fixed for the second round.

On the way into the track today we saw Shawn Fink's super cool Outlaw 10.5 Nova wagon on the side of the road (yes, you heard that right) with the rear tires off the car. After a two hour affair to fix the tubes in his slicks, he made it to the track. "It must have been the burnout I did on Fremont Street last night that did it," Fink laughed.

Last night Murillo's last qualifier pass was cut short by a transmission that wouldn't go into high gear. All of that was fixed today and went on to win against tuner Brian Macy's beautiful Camaro. Macy's car is still new to him and he has been creeping up on his combination slowly.

The MMR crew with their Pro Street Mustang out of contention put the pressure on Mark Luton to go rounds on behalf of the company. The team had struggled with the Coyote-powered Mustang all weekend but seemed to get the car sorted better during round one. Luton would be .057 on the tree against Arnie Fisher's .176 and Luton would loose it at the strip by a margin of .003.

WIllard Kinzer continued to mop up the Extreme Drag Radial field through the second round of eliminations where he ran a 6.588 at an unbelievable 234.61 mph against Neil Richards.

Al Jimenez would have a bitter sweet first two rounds of eliminations. During the first round Jimenez would become the first leaf spring-equipped doorslammer to run a 6-second quarter mile with a 6.993 at 206.83 mph. In the second round Jimenez would face off against Rich Hoyle where he would get out of shape, giving the 7.433 at 183.34 mph win to Hoyle.

Neil Richards and Brant Palmer would win the pedalfest of the round award. Palmer's Camaro would begin to wheelstand right off the hit while slightly down track Brant's car would begin to come up. As both bounced their way down the quarter mile, it would be Richards who would edge out the win with a 8.205 at 171.45 to Palmer's 8.250 at 189.36

The run to talk about in Hot Street was Michael DeMayo's fastest run of the weekend - a 8.193 at 163.28 mph run during the second round.

It was a sloppy round in Wild Street - plagued by broken car no shows and bad reaction times. During the first round only two of the five races had both competitors racing. By the second round, it would be Artis Houston who had a competition single that would advance to the semis. The other two would be Kevin Young over Mike Orban and Jeff Young over Warren Saunders.

The excitement never ends in Vegas as Aaron Wells' engine let go slightly past the 330 foot cone. What started as just smoke steadily developed into a full fledged fire. As Wells crossed the stripe, the car begin to spin in the middle of the track, coming to a rest without crashing into the wall.

Jeff Young, with wheels in the air, defeated Artis Houston in the semi final round of Wild Street with a 7.598 at 187.70 mph to Houston's 8.041 at 177.93. It will be an all-Young final in Wild Street with brother Kevin not showing up, handing the win to Jeff.

In a holeshot victory upset in Hot Street, Victor Brum beat number one qualifier Tony Aneian who was sleeping on the tree with a .246 light. At the stripe Brum took it with a slower 8.261 a 164.67 to Aneian's 8.201 at 165.94. Mike DeMayo moves to the finals with a win over a non-appearing Rod DeWild.

Eric Dillard ran the fastest pass of the round on Extreme Drag Radial with a 6.763 at 226.96 mph run, taking out Chris Groves. Willard Kinzer won on a lifting 7.414 at 188.38, though we are unsure if it was an intentional lift or he suffered from parts failure. We did note that Kinzer's car had been smoking most of the day.

 Final Round Notes

In a disappointing turn of events Jose Gonzalez ended up with a rod kicked out the side of his block during his semi-final run, giving the win to Coughlin. On a bye Coughlin ran his best time of the weekend - a 5.802 at 254.18 mph.

This is the most consistent we have ever seen Mike Murillo run. Every pass was straight down the track without any drama. Murillo ended up in the finals against Richard Klann where Murillo ran a 6.713 at 219.44 mph to Klann's 7.051 at 190.57. When Murillo came to pick up his money he said what he was using it for...a vasectomy...ouch.

Eric Dillard was another that kept the consistency going which netted him the win in Extreme Drag Radial against veteran Dave Bowman, who suffered from traction problems. Dillard's pass was a 6.705 at 228.96 mph to Bowman's 7.272 at 200.26.

It was a tight battle as usual in Hot Street as Michael DeMayo edged out Victor Brum on a 8.211 at 162.20 to a 8.226 at 163.65.

Ryan Jones in his really nice '65 Nova took the win over Brent Ramsey - a 5.179 at 144.43 to a 5.273 at 134.46 on 8.5-inch tires!

Final Eliminations Ladders

]]> http://www.dragzine.com/race-coverage/drag-radial-events/street-car-super-nationals-2012-same-day-coverage/feed/ 0 http://www.dragzine.com/image/2012/11/SCSCN12THUMB.jpghttp://www.dragzine.com/image/2012/11/SCSCN12THUMB.jpg http://www.dragzine.com/race-coverage/psca-coverage/psca-takes-over-las-vegas-for-the-weekend/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=psca-takes-over-las-vegas-for-the-weekend http://www.dragzine.com/race-coverage/psca-coverage/psca-takes-over-las-vegas-for-the-weekend/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:55:49 +0000 Rick Seitz http://www.dragzine.com/?p=323835 Throughout the weekend of October 5-7, the ground was shaking on the west coast and it wasn’t because of an earthquake. Close to 200 racers and countless spectators had gathered for the 2012 Pacific Street Car Association (PSCA) West Coast Nationals sponsored by Mickey Thompson.

The event was held at the highly regarded Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a facility that not only houses a dragstrip, but a NASCAR oval track, an autocross course, and even an area for Formula-D drifters. 

Since Las Vegas is only a five hour drive from our Murrieta, California offices, we made it a point to cover the event. Besides, we needed an excuse to get some more runs on our long-term 2002 Camaro project car, BlownZ.

Friday October 5th, Test and Tune

Once we arrived at the event early Friday afternoon, we immediately unloaded our Camaro along with all of our gear and set about getting ready for some trial passes. Friday was essentially a show up, set up, and test and tune night for all of the racers participating in the event.

Joe Schalpi's crew worked hard throughout the weekend to keep the Pro Street '57 Chevy in top form.

In the meantime, your author cruised the pits to see what other vehicles the participants were fielding for the weekend. Immediately we stumbled upon John Schalpi’s car, the Pro Street ’57 Chevy that packs a 526ci. Hemi and is well-known for being a low 6-second contender in the quarter mile. There were other cars we were excited about too, like Artis Houston’s ’71 Nova who was also competing with us in Wild Street, among many others.

We saw quite a large array of different cars competing at the event, from a pair of bone stock 2013 Mustang V6 convertibles to Top Fuel rail cars, and everything in between. Strangely, we were one of only two or three LS-powered vehicles competing during last weekends race. For such a popular application, we were expecting a lot more.

Dan Hale's '89 Mustang LX arrived at the party with twin turbos and 324ci. of Modular power, enough to put him squarely in the nines. Ollie Frazier's '69 Nova was a bit more tame, running a naturally aspirated 406ci. small block that keeps him in the 11's. It may not sound that impressive to some, but Ollie easily earns our respect being as how he's campaigning such a machine at 80 years young. Look for a full feature on both of these cars in the near future.

As far as BlownZ was concerned, we made a couple of trial passes. Unfortunately one of the passes wasn’t very rewarding, as we destroyed the blower belt that would result in a pass of 9.04, having to lift off at the end of the track. Although we would eventually set a new best time for our BlownZ Camaro during the event, this problem with shredding our blower belts would become a consistent problem throughout the weekend.

The test and tune didn’t start until later than expected at 6 p.m., but everyone who got to make a pass or two definitely helped set the stage for things to come on Saturday and Sunday.

Late Friday evening consisted of test and tune runs by several competitors and us destroying a blower belt. This would happen a few times throughout the weekend, despite our attempts of curing the problem. Mechanical perplexities aside, this didn't keep us from setting a new record time with our BlownZ project car with an 8.24 at 168 mph.

We weren't the only ones who had problems. Russ Delia's '68 Camaro SS blew a head gasket, causing the team to drop a piston during Friday night's test and tune. This would seal their fate at the event, but look forward to a full feature on this boosted F-body in the future.

Saturday October 6th, Qualifying Rounds

An interesting selection of vehicles took part in the event's small car show throughout the weekend.

Wanting to get a head start on the event, we woke up at dawn to be at the gates at 8 a.m.. Like the night before, spectators showed up and were ready to see some racing. We walked around the pits to see what some of the racers had to say about the track, the way their car was running, and what challenges they were facing. Many of them claimed that the track was a little slippery, especially in the right lane, and the changes in temperature throughout the day didn’t help.

Toaster's friend and pit crew member, Jamie Voorhees, helps him square up on the track.

We immediately ran into Ryan “Toaster” Jones, and his red ’65 Nova first thing in the morning. Although the last time we saw him he was having head gasket issues in Pomona, we’re happy to report that he was back, and running better than ever before. He upgraded most of his cooling system, and said that he had his car in Arizona just a couple of weeks earlier where it made a best pass of 7.64. We were looking forward to see what he would do this weekend.

Ben Davidou was just as eager to get out there and see how well his 334ci. SBF-powered ’95 Mustang GT with a 98mm turbo was running. He would later tell us tales of 5.50 ET’s, a slippery track, 60-ft. times in the 1.30′s, and hoping to earn a 1.20 60-ft. Ben’s Mustang was relatively simple, but efficient, and would continue to impress us throughout the weekend. Ben was competing in Outlaw 8.5, and running Q16 in his boosted ‘Stang.

Ben Davidou was pulling ET's in the 5.50's all weekend and eventually won his class for the event.

 Throughout the event there was beautiful weather, lots of qualifying racing action, and surprisingly, very little carnage. That included carnage of our own, as BlownZ didn’t really want to keep its blower belt in place. Apparently, the blower was mounted slightly tilted, causing our belts to slip and get shredded from the pulleys. Luckily, we had a few extras on hand, but as it would later turn out, just enough to get us through the weekend.

But this didn’t keep us from setting a new personal best of 8.24 at 168 mph! Traction was a bit of an issue for us as the track was slick in some areas, and despite the inconveniences with the belt, the car ran strong. We made a few adjustments to our supercharger assembly in an attempt to quell these issues, and they helped, but it wouldn’t be enough. However, we didn’t let anything deter our determination to continue racing, and we would continue doing so throughout the weekend. 

Even trucks showed up to the event, like Anthony Salas' '08 Trailblazer SS and Doug Delay's '05 Silverado Duramax. Joe Keurjikian's '69 Trans Am represented Hot Street, while Ollie Frazier and Artis Houston represented Novas for each of their classes.

At the end of the day, one racer almost went home early, but thanks to Jeff Hughes of Hughes Performance, that wasn’t the case at all. Jeff was on hand with a trailer loaded with everything needed to rebuild a transmission. In fact, he had a complete transmission and enough components on hand to rebuild ten more.

The fortunate person (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at things) was Scott Bieschke. Scott was campaigning his ’88 Mustang LX in the Outlaw 8.5 category, and was packing a QMP-built 363ci. SBF and an 88mm turbo that, together, generates 1,400 rwhp.

With over 1,400 horsepower going to the rear, it's a small wonder that Scott Bieschke burned up hids built Powerglide during Saturday's Qualifying Round 3.

This is the clutch pack that was removed from Scott's transmission. These six clutches were welded together.

With everything on hand to rebuild ten transmissions, and to completely replace two, Jeff Hughes was there to help out anybody with their transmission needs.

Here are just a few shots of Jeff rebuilding Scott's Powerglide. Hughes worked into the darkness to rebuild and upgrade the Powerglide.

Not bad, but definitely enough to destroy the built Powerglide Scott relied on to shift his ‘Stang down the track. As it turns out, six clutches had welded themselves together in lieu of all of the heat that resulted from trans-braking the engine for too long.

Jeff claims he typically can rebuild a transmission in twenty minutes, but if there’s a lot of broken debris, it could take as long as two hours. Scott broke his Powerglide in the late evening, and Jeff worked on it into the darkness. When we arrived at the track the next morning, it was ready to go.

Qualifying Results

Sunday October 7th, Eliminations

Racers filled the staging lanes for Sunday's eliminations.

The third and final day at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was the day of eliminations. As much fun as we were having, it was time to either put up or shut up. Everyone running that day had the determined look in the eye, as all racers had their sights set on winning their categories.

Norman Chang would go on to take home the winner's trophy in his class. Pretty ironic, since he was the most laid back racer we talked to all weekend.

That is everyone except Norman Chang, who took a more relaxed, “just here to have fun” approach to the whole thing. Norman was running an ’88 Mustang LX with a 427 SBF and twin turbos. He claims he’s not a points chaser, and doesn’t take racing events too seriously. The car itself is new to Norman, and he just swapped on some Mickey Thompson Drag Radials to compete in the Xtreme Drag Radial class. Ironically, he was the number one qualifier and went on to win his class with a 5.164 at 145.27 mph.

Kevin Young was there with his ’86 Camaro, and he claimed to be having no issues with the car at all. Even the track was on his side he claimed. His only gripe was the “finicky air,” as the elevation and abrupt wind blasts were there to cause him a little grief. Like Norman, he was the number one qualifier in his class, although he ultimately handed the final elimination round win to his brother, Jeff, in his ’85 Camaro.

Kevin Young's '86 Camaro was consistent and earned him the number one qualifying spot in Sunday's eliminations. Unfortunately, he lost the top spot to his brother, Jeff, in his '85 Camaro.

Walking past John Scialpi’s pits, one would have the pleasure of seeing a group of guys wrenching on the old Chevy to get it prepped for Sunday’s rounds of eliminations. When we approached John, he told us that they were happy to be the number one qualifier in the Pro Street Category. In fact, the PSCA event made it four events in a row for the Scialpi team to accomplish top honors in their class.

They were running new Goodyear slicks that, unfortunately, made traction a bit of an issue, but they were determined to find that “sweet spot” that would allow them to get the launch just right. The Car Gods must have been smiling down, as they won the event with a time of 6.400 at 221.27 mph.

John Scialpi was number one qualifier for Sunday's race, and would ultimately won the event in the Pro Street class.

Right before we went to grab some trackside action, we ran into Randy Jones and his red 2005 Cavalier that was built to compete in the Hot Street category. Before you pass judgement on the J-body we should probably point out that it has a 388 ci. Chevy under the hood that helps propel the RWD-conversioned Cavalier down the track in 8.2-seconds at over 164 mph. Like the others, Randy landed himself in the winner’s circle with an 8.263 at 164.67 in the final.

BlownZ getting it's front wheels up on our final run.

Unfortunately, BlownZ was eliminated in the first round, thanks once again to our slipping blower belt issue. Although the adjustments we made Saturday evening did help, it still wasn’t enough to keep our belt from destroying itself. Despite the technical issues, our Camaro set itself a new record time and there’s plenty more untapped potential left in our combination. As of now, we are working on a fix and you’ll eventually get to read about it here.

Eliminations Results

Longtime West coast Pro Modified racer John Scialpi muscled his way to the Pro Street crown on Sunday afternoon, using a first round competition bye to advance into a final round matchup with Jeremy Hanger. There, Scialpi took an .075 to .193 edge out of the gate and never trailed, running 6.40 at 221.27 mph to Hangers’ 6.47 at 210.67. Four-time PSCA champion Doug Sikora also walked way victorious on the weekend after making headlines with a new record performance of 6.509-seconds from his supercharged, 499 cubic inch Mustang.

Extreme Drag Radial No. 1 qualifier Norman Chang, out of Atherton, Calif., fell well off the pace in the final round, running “just” a 5.16 at 145.27 mph, but it was all he needed to secure the victory, as opponent Wally Tuttle Jr. had troubles and slowed. Chang neared his 4.72-second qualifying pace in eliminations, downing Doug Shelton in round with a 4.83, Scot Slotten in the quarters with a stout 4.78, and posting a 4.84 on his semifinal competition single. Tuttle, meanwhile, ran as quick as 4.96 during the previous three rounds, where he downed Ryan Jones, Rich Hoyle, and Chris Graves.

The Young Brothers out of Idaho Falls, Id. squared off in the Wild Street final, with Jeff snatching the hardware with a 7.66 at 186.33 mph as Kevin was dead-late and slowed to just a 14-second lap. The pair had both run in the mid-7.50′s earlier in the day, setting up what what was expected to be a titanic battle for the West Coast National crown that didn’t materialize.

The naturally aspirated Hot Street class was won by Monarch Beach, Calif. native Randy Jones in his 2005 Chevy Cavalier, as he rolled to an 8.26 at 164.67 mph to defeat Al Aguire and his ’68 Barracuda. Jones recorded low elapsed time of each round, including a best-of-the-event 8.211 in the opening round.

Ben Davidow took his ’95 Mustang from the No. 3 qualifying slot all the way to victory circle, scoring a 5.48 to 5.53 win over Scott Bieschke in the money round. Davidow ran low elapsed time of eliminations in the semifinals — a 5.311 to oust Jason Kenzevich.

Pro Street

Extreme Drag Radial

Outlaw 8.5

Wild Street

Hot Street

It’s that time of the year when the weather turns cold in Las Vegas, but the track heats up for some of the fastest door slammers in the country to race at the Street Car Super Nationals.  There are estimations of 50+ Pro Street/Mod cars to show up this weekend and with a big purse for the first Outlaw 10.5 car in the 5′s, you never know who might be converting for this weekend.  Keep it tuned to DRAGZINE all weekend for updates and photos from Vegas.

Special thanks to our event coverage sponsor Mickey Thompson Tires.  Check out their fine line of wheels and tires at www.mickeythompsontires.com

This morning we shot Chris Alston's awesome Vortech supercharged Nova for an upcoming feature. Alston sits third in Outlaw 10.5W qualifying.

Eliminations Notes

Brad Brand made history during the first round of Pro Street by being the first person to ever run a 5 second pass on 10.5Ws with a 5.97. Brad collected $7,800 for that pass from a variety of sponsors that put up the cash for the first to the 5s. Better yet, Brad can still win the $20,000 Pro Street purse if he can keep running consistent 5.9s.

Randy Walker would have a close call when he crossed the centerline racing Randy Adler, who went on to a 6.261 win.

There were a two holeshot victories during the first round, starting with Rod Burbage who took out Dave Hance on a 6.090 to Hance's 6.088. Burbage would have Hance by .013 at the tree, and it looks like Hance's motor was also letting go on the top end of the track

Troy Coughlin would continue his consistency in the class and post up a 5.981 at an insane 255 mph - the fastest pass of the round. Clint Hariston would have problems with bad wheel hop the first 100 feet of his run, but was able to regain the GTO and narrowly beat out Monte Berney with a 6.529 to a 6.551.

Outlaw 10.5W

Nearly half of the pairings in Outlaw 10.5W was a broke bye run - 6 in total. Billy Glidden would set low ET of the round on his 6.426 single run. Mike Sasina would have a hairy run in his Mustang while racing Chris Storlie. Sasina's Mustang would begin to hop and while in the midst of regaining control, got dangerously close to the concrete wall. Storlie would go on with the 7.571 win.

Extreme Drag Radial

It was a bad round for John Wall...who ended up in the wall during the first round of Extreme Drag Radial. John was on a pass until around the 330-foot cone the Mustang got loose, cut in front of Dana Cook's Mustang, (who was able to luckily dodge Wall) went into the wall, bounced back off and then rested back onto it. Wall was reported to be ok.

Roger Holder is going to be hard to catch in Extreme Drag Radial, as he has been the low ET of every round, dipping to a 7.095 during the second round. An interesting run between Sandi Wold and Walt Brock found Brock going up into smoke off the hit, with Wold's car shutting off at 100 feet. Brock was able to straighten the car out and beat the costing Wold to the stripe.

Hot Street

It's been a Blankenship and DeMayo battle in Hot Street for low ET, with both Mustangs running in the teens, though it would be DeMayo with the class lowest during the first round with a 8.133.

Wild Street

Outlaw 8.5

If you think that an 8.5-inch tire doesn't hook, then you need to talk to Jack Avetisiam, who bounced his way down the track at every blip of the throttle. Fresh out of retirement Manny Figueroa continued his reign of terror by having the field covered by over a tenth during every round.

In the semi final round of Outlaw 10.5 Mike Murillo would take on Chris Alston. The race was extremely close, that was, until the top end of the track with both cars suffered from significant mechanical failure. Though it was Murillo who kept his foot down and the oil spraying to edge out Alston. 'I hit the fire bottles before the chuts, I could see fire under my cowl,' said Murillo. It was an easy final round win for Glidden who simply staged and idled down the track.

It was an amazing quarter finals in Pro Street were Gonzalez and Brand would run identical 5.942 ETs, with Gonzalez narrowly winning on reaction time. The final round was no surprise when Maggino would face off against Gonzalez. Maggino would throw everything at his Camaro, which ended up costing him on a starting line with Gonzalez grabbing the $20,000 prize.

Final Ladders – All Heads Up

Alston was on another quick pass when the engine let loose at the top end, sending him on a wild ride into the gravel trap at the top end of the track. Despite oil absolutely covering both front tires, Alston kept the car straight and between the guardrails, doing an excellent job of saving the car (and himself) from what could have been a bad crash.

Alston’s 1964 Nova uses (no surprise here) the Chris Alston’s Chassisworks billet supercharger drive system unveiled last year, turning a Vortech V-28 123 that feeds 598 cubic inches. Unfortunately, a rod failure kicked massive holes in both sides of the oil pan and block, ending Alston’s weekend prematurely. Despite the setback, we congratulate Alston on decimating the 6-second barrier and look forward to seeing his Nova back on track.

Sunday Elimination Notes

A couple of updates from the track here in Las Vegas as we work our way through the starting rounds of competition. As always, we’d like to extend special thanks to our event coverage sponsor Mickey Thompson. Check out their great line of wheels and tires at www.mickeythompsontires.com.

If you wondered whether the heat of the day was going to slow down Mike Maggio from his 6.001 pace last night, his competition single in round 1 was only .016 slower, and he carried another three MPH through the traps.

Sometimes getting to the finish line first doesn't earn you the win - Mike Bowman had left Sean Renteria for dead in their first round Pro Street Pairing, right up until he got loose and kicked the reflector blocks over into Renteria's lane. It's hard to argue you didn't cross the line when the evidence is bouncing around in the other guy's lane...

Vic Brum (in the near lane) looked like he was going to get an odd-field first round single in Hot Street, but Tony Aneian, who broke on his only qualifying attempt yesterday, was laddered against him as an "all run" entry and ended up stealing the trip to the finals from Brum.

Final Results – All Classes

Pro Street

Over the weekend, everyone’s attention was focused on Mike Maggio in Pro Street. Coming off of a high-5-second pass in practice, he qualified number one with a 6.001 pass late on Saturday, and the question wasn’t so much whether he’d win the event than if he would do it with the first five in competition. His ladder bye first round netted a 6.017, which demonstrated that the conditions weren’t going to be a huge handicap, then rattled off a 6.000 against Kelly Bluebaugh in round 2. The semi-finals paired him against John Scialpi, but a red light on the other side of the tree meant even though Maggio “only” ran 6.055, he would still be going to the last round.

Meanwhile, Rod Burbage was quietly working his way through the far side of the ladder, or at least as quietly as is possible in a blown Pro Street Corvette. Qualified third, Burbage drew #20 on the roster, Andrew Berry, for the opening round. After taking almost a tenth lead at the tree, Burbage never looked back, running 6.116 to Berry’s 7.010. Round 2 was closer at the start, with Burbage only .01 ahead of Joe Lepone, Jr. off the line, but with Lepone’s Camaro trailing expensive smoke from before half-track, it was all over long before the finish line. The semis paired Burbage with John Mihovetz to see who would get to take on Maggio, and Mihovetz was late on the tree, then rattled the tires to boot.

That set the final round, and on paper it looked like a gimmie for Maggio – carrying more than a tenth over Burbage, it should have been a done deal. But when they paired up, Maggio hit the snooze button when the ambers flashed, and left with a .240 light, while Burbage went for broke and cut a .020, his best reaction of the day. Maggio’s Camaro still had a six-oh in it, and Burbage was on a six-teen pass, so everyone held their breath until the scoreboards lit up with the stunning news; Burbage had won the race at the tree, with Maggio’s quicker 6.014 at 244.47 MPH not enough to get around the Corvette’s 6.131 at 236.46.

As a post-script, after both cars were scaled and cleared tech, there was some question about activity by crew members caught on one of the on-board video cameras. PSCA officials immediately impounded (for lack of a better word) Burbage’s car, inspected it for loose ballast, and re-weighed it, finding that it came up the same as it did the first time and nipping any potential controversy in the bud. Congratulations to Burbage and his team on the win, and kudos to the PSCA organization for working diligently to ensure both the fairness of competition and to protect the reputations of racers when a question arises.

Outlaw 10.5

Rick Snavely was the only Outlaw 10.5 racer with a six next to his name in Saturday qualifying, and that trend would continue on Sunday. But as they say, pobody’s nerfect, and after the first round against a sleeping Mark Lutton (who pulled a .330 light to Snavely’s .028), the team discovered they’d hurt the rear gears in the Garret Mustang. While Bothwell Motorsports doesn’t exactly travel light and had a spare set to swap, they still only took a leisurely 10-second pass in the ladder bye their number one qualifier spot had earned them in the semis, saving their mojo for the final round.

Meeting Snavely there would be number two qualifier Ron Weems, who had gotten out of the first round race against Deron Growe where it looked like both drivers were competing to see who could see the most green – Weems’ .486 was slow, but Growe’s .513 was slower. Chris Kephart was next in round 2, but even though he tree’d Weems, .072 to .121, the big red Goat pulled around on the top end and Weems won, 7.028 to 7.270.

In the money round, Weems got it together at the tree, gaining a slight .022-to-.031 advantage on Snavely, but even Weem’s second-best pass of the weekend, 7.006 at 194 and change, wasn’t enough to hold off Snavely’s 6.820 at 215.79.

Extreme Drag Radial

Xtreem Drag Radial (or XDR, as I will shorten it to so as not to have to type “Xtreem” again) came down to number one versus number two in a battle of second-gen Camaros. Top qualifier Brant Campbell earned a first-round bye, then knocked off fifth-qualified Jeff Longden in the semis despite giving up a .293-.143 holeshot. Number two on the ladder, Al Jimenez, had no trouble at all getting out of the first round when his opponent Steve De Young sat for a full four and a half seconds looking at the green bulb, then got another no-contest win when Terry Barkley limped to a 19-second pass in the semis. The final round in XDR was a little more exciting, with near identical reactions off the line and an honest race to the finish. In the end, Jimenez simply had more left in the tank, running 7.589 at 193.93 to Campbell’s 8.442 at 183.37.

Wild Street

Hot Street

Limited Street

Street Challenge

Quick Street

Mean Street

Open Comp

Mustang Maddness

Bracket 1

Street Muscle

Top Comp