There seems to be no love lost between Memphis and Houston. In the grudge world, that is.

Following early exits at last fall’s Redemption 6.0 no prep event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, grudge and street racing veterans James “Birdman Finney and Memphis’ JJ DaBoss squared off at an undisclosed location on the streets of Tulsa in their big tire, big-power door cars for a one-shot match with $13,000 on the line, which JJ took handily. Just like that, a rivalry was born, and whether or not there’d be a chapter two was a question more of ‘when’ and less of ‘if’.

Video credit: Urban Hillbilly Videos

The answer was about three months, as JJ and Finney locked in for a $10,000 matchup at Arkansas’ Newport Dragstrip on the first weekend in March. After the standard-fare trash-talking between two of the supreme trash-talkers in the game, the day finally dawned at Newport — a true throwback 1/8-mile strip with all the makings of a grudge-type venue, including a visible lack of guardrails for most of its length.

The match didn’t go off without it’s share of drama, as a disagreement on the starting line regarding the agreed length of the burnouts ensued before both parties agreed to climb back into their cars and give the fans the race they’d come to see. Ultimately, Finney evened the score by a much narrower margin than he’d have liked, putting a gap on JJ right out of the gate before getting loose and tip-toe’ing his way to the finish line to just barely edge out the charging nitrous-fed Firebird.

With the score now squared up at 1-1, a tiebreaker is simply a given, isn’t it?