Brad Edwards wasted no time in launching an assault on the radial record books this weekend at Huntsville Dragway. In pre-race testing at Mike and Zach Jones’ inaugural RadialFest event, Edwards laid down a 1.087 sixty-foot number on a planned shutoff pass. Rain washed out the remainder of testing and pushed Friday’s planned qualifying round to Saturday.

Competitors faced bitter cold temperatures and a wicked 15-plus MPH headwind as qualifying opened, but thankfully, the Jonses had hired the radial-prep dream team of Tyler “Prep Stig” Crossnoe and Jason “Pooch” Rueckert to work their magic on the racing surface. Edwards laid down an effortless 4.07 to head the Pro Drag Radial field, resetting how own stock suspension record in the process. He turned around for the second round of qualifying and blasted to a new radial tire world record — regardless of suspension type — with a 4.03, unseating Keith Berry as the radial king.

Jamie Hancock, who’d won the two most recent major radial events at South Georgia Motorsports Park and Holly Springs, struggled to get down the track in qualifying, but the Alabama native pulled it all together for the first round when he fired off a 4.07 to serve notice that Edwards would not have a monopoly on the 4.0 passes.

Edwards elected not to take his first round bye run, awarded to him by virtue of his No. 1 qualifying position, but he picked up right where he left off in the second round with another 4.03-second blast. Hancock returned fire by grabbing the record himself with a 4.01, sending the crowd into a frenzy!

In the quarterfinals, both racers duplicated passes of 4.03 for Edwards and 4.01 for Hancock, ensuring any chatter of records needing to be “backed up” would be quelled soundly.

In the semifinal round, Hancock slipped slightly and “only” ran a 4.02, while Edwards snatched the record back for the turbo camp with a 4.00-second streak down Huntsville’s sticky right lane. That set up the epic final round between the two quickest men ever in the history of radial racing.

While the crowd anxiously waited for the final round, the tension was heavy, but the atmosphere carried an electricity as everybody knew that regardless of the outcome, Huntsville would go into the off-season holding the top two spots in the record books. While that permeated throughout the facility, there was also a cautious hope that one — or perhaps both — would crack the three-second barrier.

The final simultaneously sent waves of jubilation and concern through all in attendance. Edwards indeed etched his name in the history books as the first-ever radial racer to run quicker than four seconds as he lit up the scoreboard, and the crowd, with a 3.99 at 193 MPH. But Jamie Hancock lost traction around the 150 foot mark and nosed his Corvette into the concrete retaining wall just past half track. Luckily, the impact was lessened by Hancock quickly getting out of the throttle and braking as the car slid, resulting in a glancing blow that caused mostly cosmetic damage to the nose of car. Hancock was uninjured and has already vowed to return next season.

Edwards offically takes the record into the off season at 3.990, and he will go down in history as the man who shattered the last major 1/8th mile radial elapsed time barrier.

Mike and Zach Jones have already locked down the same dates for Radial Fest 2K15 and Jason and Tyler have agreed to return to handle the prep duties. With Huntsville having proven it belongs among elite radial facilities in the nation with this weekend’s numbers, this event should grow into one of the premiere radial races each year.