While grudge racing can be a rough and tumble world not for the faint of heart or the economically challenged, there is a simple beauty in this small corner of our sport in that there are no elapsed times to hang on, no qualifying, no ladders, little if any tech inspections, and a whole lot of unbridled passion unlike anywhere else in the sport. After all, there’s a lot of “skin” in this game. But perhaps above all of that, there’s the fact that, if a pair of racers can agree to it, virtually any race between any two vehicles can be a reality — no holds barred.

When we say any race, we do mean any race. Like, say, a Pro Nitrous doorslammer lined up alongside a supercharged Top Dragster…heads-up. Indeed, it happened.

Our buddy Steve Jackson, better known in the racing community as “Stevie Fast,” has been on a tear this season since he sold his famous small-tire Fox body Mustang and assumed the controls of one of Al-Anabi Racing’s formidable ’68 Camaro Pro Nitrous entries. Jackson, one of the biggest names in the grudge world and certainly one of its most successful, grabbed some hardware over the winter in the Camaro with the Arabian Drag Racing League in Qatar and then returned stateside and won in his ADRL debut in Rockingham.

But of course, just because Stevie isn’t driving a grudge-specific race car doesn’t mean he can’t return to his roots and have a little fun. And so, over the weekend, he locked in a race at the House of Hook, the Carolina Dragway, against the supercharged Top Dragster entry owned and driven by Eddie Careccia and backed for this race by another grudge racing standout, Tony Bynes and tthe Primetime Racing team.

According to reports, the pair pulled their race cars right off the trailer without so much as a shakedown lap, lined them up, and made this side-by-side hit. While there have been some message board reports of Careccia putting the “gap” on Jackson, we hear the margin at the stripe was more in the neighborhood of a couple of feet that Jackson trailed by. Careccia’s dragster has been in the 3.80’s (at least) and Jackson has gone 3.70’s in his doorslammer, so no doubt this was one of the quickest — and greatest — grudge races we might see all year.

(Credit to Jason Green for the video)