The always tough fields featured in the Texas Outlaw Pro Modified Association again delivered a great show at Texas Raceway on Friday night under the lights, and after a tough night of racing it was the top two qualifiers, Gaylen Smith and Doug Riesterer, left to battle it out. Riesterer and his nitrous-aided racer grabbed the advantage on the starting, but the screw blower of Smith had the horsepower advantage and ran the quicker elapsed time to steal the win by just two hundredths of a second.
Smith qualified “The Bounty Hunter” ’57 Bel-Air at the top of the field with a 4.04 at a struggling 148 mph. Riesterer grabbed the second position for the best qualifying nitrous oxide-assisted entry with a 4.07 at 178 mph. Randall Reid was third with a 4.11, while former ADRL Extreme 10.5 event winner Michelle Wilson qualified her 2000 Firebird in the fourth position.
Wilson would go out in the first round after hiking the front end up and moving towards the centerline, forcing her to lift and allowing David Baldwin to advance to the next round with a 4.36-second lap. Riesterer would line up against Jim Dudley for first round action in a matchup of nitrous assisted entries. The pair were even on the starting line, and would race side by side until Riesterer started pouring the coals to his ’68 “Mad Scientist” Camaro, taking the win with a strong 4.05 at 176 mph. Smith would up the ante in the first round of eliminations with a 3.96-second effort at 171 mph to easily defeat Eddie Roach. Round one then ended in a bizarre race as Jerry Hunt won in awkward fashion over number three qualifier Reid. Both cars were on the two-step, but when the yellow lights flashed, Reid red-lit by .008 and was forced to throw away his 4.12-second effort, while Hunt’s broken Studebaker idled down the track to a 16-second lap – his last of the evening.
Semi-final action saw Riesterer with a single when Hunt unable to return to action, recording a strong pass of 4.08-seconds at 178 mph. Smith would face off against Baldwin to battle it out for the other spot in the final round. Baldwin would get a slight advantage on the starting line, but Smith had it made up by the sixty-foot markers, prompting Baldwin to click it off as Smith captured the round win with a 3.97 at 176 mph.
The final round would be an all-LenMar Motorsports affair with the nitrous oxide-huffing mount of Riesterer and the screw blown entry of Smith. In their previous meeting, it was Riesterer who collected the win. Riesterer did his job on the tree, grabbing an .031 reaction time, giving him nearly six-hundredths of a second advantage on the starting line. Riesterer’s Camaro struggled for traction and he was forced to peddle multiple times, while Smith continued to charge hard. At the finish line, it was Smith posting an ealpsed time of 4.06-seconds at 183 mph for the win. Riesterer fell off the tough pace he’d set earlier in the night, recording just a 4.14-second run at 177 mph. The win extends Smith’s lead in the series to 155 points over Randall Reid. TOPMA will be back in action on September third at Dallas Raceway.