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The U.S. Street Nationals at the Bradenton Motorsports Park in central Florida has become one of the annual kickoff events of the drag racing season, as some of the quickest and fastest doorslammer racers in the world get out and stretch their legs for the first time after the grueling winter. Once again, Dragzine is back in the house to bring you same day race coverage, news, notes, results, and photos as they happen! Keep it tuned here all weekend long, because we aren’t leaving until they hand out the last piece of hardware on Sunday.
Special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels for their support of our race coverage all season long! For all your high performance tire and wheel needs, visit Mickey Thompson.
Assorted Pro Stock, Pro Mods and other teams have been testing here in Bradenton for the past couple of weeks. The crew was scraping some built up rubber from the surface this afternoon getting ready for tonight's test session and the weekend racing.
The ever controversial Jeremy Fowler aka Max Rider has teamed up with the Fat Boy Racing team for 2013 for a three car effort. Shown here with Corey Swanstrom (right), Justin will be driving X275 with Skywalker and Mike Wacasser behind the wheel of the third car. Jeremy would run a 4.86 @ 143 later in t0nights session.
Tommy Rainer rolled out to Florida with his beautifully wrapped 1st Gen twin turbo Limited Street Camaro. He was a bit light teching in earlier so will be adding a few pounds before making any passes today.
This Ford Lightening pickup was finished up late last year and was debuted with this combo at the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals here in Bradenton. The AC Carcraft built truck is owned by Eric Leeper who is fresh off a runner up finish in X275 at the Tomato Nationals. The engine is a 5.4 mod motor by Tim Eichorn at Mustang Performance Racing fed by a large frame 88MM Precision turbo.
Kenny Markwich is back to racing after loosing an engine last year. The father (Gary) and son (Kenny) team has no real changes since they last ran with the exception of the fresh engine and are glad to be back here and racing again. Gary ran a nice 4.73 @ 160 today.
Bryan Marrow is here this weekend running Limited Street with his second gen leaf spring Camaro. The F3R136 Procharger feeds a Fig Performance built 565 ci. BBC backed with an ATF transmission and ATI converter. The team runs out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with the AC Carcraft fabricated chassis.
Track official Keith Adams checks the inlet of Markwich's turbos in tech this afternoon. TRZ Motorsports machined several gauges for checking inlet size of various turbos and blowers for X275 founder John Sears, who is also on hand this weekend.
Former NMRA Hot Street racer Tim Eichhorn has made the move to Ultimate Street after the racing organization discontinued the class. He runs a naturally aspirated 400 cubic inch small block Ford assembled in house at Mustang Performance Racing in Boynton Beach, Florida. Steve Matukas built the chassis several years ago and Tim runs a Pro Trans Proflight Transmission with a Neal Chance converter and can be 300 pounds lighter than he ran previously with the NMRA. He is sponsored by BlowbyRacing and UPR.
Team Pirez unloaded here last night and get down the track to the tune of 4.73 @ 153, so far the fastest run under the 2013 X275 rules. We have some great weather in the forecast so we will see if that number holds through the weekend.
Kevin Neal's new car is here fresh from TRZ Motorsports as of yesterday. The car features some new innovations and a double rail chassis for X275. After a couple of runs they look to be getting a handle on it as this was on the way to a 4.96 @ 149 MPH.
Walt Drakeford from Real Speed Racing in Clearwater, Florida looks to have his ignition woes worked out, now just to keep it on the ground, he did set this one down easy.
This Mustang is fresh out of London Chassis Dyno, owned by Howard West and driven by Charles Epperson. It's got a 347 ci. 8.2 deck small block Ford with a GT47/88 turbo providing the power to run X275 this weekend.
"Tripple B" Bad Brad Brand made the ride to Florida to compete in Outlaw 10.5. So far it's Brand and Rob Wells that I saw on the property today with Wells running a 4.15.
Troy Pirez Jr. (left) lends a hand with getting Ziff Hudson's Zypher fixed up after eating a piston today.
Another casualty of the evening belong to Bryan Marrow who had the mak gear in his transmission shear on his full run attempt this afternoon. They hope parts from ATI arrive in time to make repairs and are trying to source a passable replacement just in case.
