NHRA SS/BS racer Jimmy DeFrank has the #1 on his car, and is no stranger to the winner’s circle, but one achievement has eluded him until this past Labor Day weekend – A Super Stock win at Indy. Qualified 21st out of a 128-car field (with another 38 racers not qualified, and a -0.684 bump spot!)  at the end of the day on Saturday, it took four rounds on Sunday and another two Monday to get down to the finals against Irvin Johns’ GT/BA Chevy Chevrolet Cobalt.

With a quicker 8.68-to-9.20 index, DeFrank would be doing the chasing and took a slim lead off the line with a .023 reaction time to Johns’ .040, and at the top end it was DeFrank with a margin of victory of a scant .0154 seconds (about 3 feet, but who’s counting?) DeFrank typically runs Red Line 20-weight Race Oil, but in an interesting bit of Super Stock tech trivia, the team will sometimes switch to 5WT Race Oil for every last bit of power when running heads-up against another SS/BS competitor. DeFrank also relies on Red Line’s Racing ATF and 75W90 Gear Oil for reliability and consistency.

In Pro Mod, it was another significant first at Indy – Brad Personett took his Precision Turbo/Big Stuff 3 Camaro to the win, which is a first for a turbo car. Like DeFrank, Personett relies on Red Line; in this case a mix of 50WT Race Oil. It took three rounds of qualifying for Personett to get into the top half of the field, but by the end of the day on Saturday he was in the number two spot and carrying almost ten miles an hour in trap speed on pole-sitter Mike Janis. In the final round of quals on Sunday, Personett couldn’t outrun Janis’ ET, but he did cement the new national speed record at 254.52mph.

In eliminations, Personett got an unexpected single in the first round when Rick Stivers’ parachute deployed during the burnout, then reset the speed record again in his win against Kenny Lang in the second, though the Camaro laid down heavy smoke in the shutdown area. It wasn’t as bad as it looked, and round 3 was almost a holeshot win for Ed Hoover, but Personett edged Hoover out at the stripe by a mere .0036 seconds (approximately 15 inches). That turned out to be the last hurdle to overcome, because in the finals Joe Baker was a no-show due to damage sustained in the semis, giving Personett an uncontested victory lap and the Wally.