Randy Lambert at the wheel of Harold Caldwells beautiful Mustang that was built by HFR Fabrication. Photos:Tim Lewis

That’s right race fans, it’s true. The gates have opened for the season at Maryland International Raceway and with a picture perfect weekend of weather, the staging lanes were busy. As one of the premiere racing facilities on the east coast, there are many big name racers that make the MIR facility one of choice for testing. This past weekend was no different with several new combinations hitting the track as well as a few of our old favorites preparing for the 2010 season.

Check out YellowBullet for more details on the happenings at MIR.

One of the newest creations in Outlaw 10.5 to hit the track is Harold Caldwell’s Mustang. Harold is no stranger to the 10.5 racing scene and his new ride created by HFR Fabrication is reminiscent of his old notchback. The wild paint scheme is show quality and the big inch Fulton has plenty of go-power packed under the hood. Aiding from several stages of nitrous oxide, Driver Randy Lambert was able to make several test hits, which look to be promising with a bit more work. On a relatively soft tune up Randy went as fast as 1.13 seconds to the sixty foot marker. The fastest pass of the day was a 4.58 to the eighth mile lifting early. The team of Caldwell and Lambert promises to get things worked out and be a real player in 2010.

Brett Hull may have the fastest 93 Cobra in the world with his new J&E Performance twin turbo combination.

One racer who is vowing to win the “Rebound” award is Brett Hull. Brett is another one of the radial tire-equipped cars out of the Corupt Motorsports camp and has made some big changes for the upcoming season. Hull’s 93 Cobra had a rough last year, which calculates into lots of stress for a driver – experiencing everything from hurt drivetrain parts to having a chute mount come off at 190mph. Brett has managed to hang his head high and keep on plugging away. Hull has equipped his Cobra with a J&E Performance 450 cubic inch small block packing twin 88mm turbos. The new setup is a big step over his old single turbo combination. Brett even managed a new career best of 7.36@195mph which may just make him the fastest real 1993 Cobra in the world.

Alex Vrettos was sorting out the new car gremlins on Konstantine Zografos' 275 Radial Mustang.

Lastly is one of our most recent feature cars belonging to Konstantine Zografos. Once again he is one of the Corupt Motorsports crew and debuted his 275 Drag Radial Mustang. The last time we saw this car it was still under construction at DMC Racing but now it is track ready. For its maiden voyage Alex Vrettos was behind the wheel to help get a handle on the car before turning Zografos loose. Starting out conservatively, Alex went 8.75@159mph on the first pass with too low air pressure in the Mickey Thompson 275’s. The car was moved around on the top end once again on the second pass as Alex ran 8.71@167mph. The third pass would come after a few adjustments but when it hooked hard on the line the rear gear set decided it had enough.  The broken rear is being fixed and intentions are to head out to Atco Raceway this coming Thursday for some more testing. Konstantine feels once they are able to put some power at it that they will have one of the fastest 275 Drag Radial cars around.