NMRA invaded Atco Raceway this past weekend for the third event this year. Friday’s eliminations were cut short due to a torrential down pour of rain! The rain and wind had everyone running for cover and pop-up tents were blowing all over the place. Pro Outlaw, Super Street Outlaw and EFI Renegade were only able to get two qualifying hits in for this event.
In the Pro Outlaw 10.5 class, Mike Murillo qualified number one with a strong 6.71. This was right after Conrad Scarry went 6.73. The three competitors in Pro Outlaw 10.5 were Mike Murillo, Conrad Scarry and Dwayne James. They qualified in that order as well. With Murillo earning the number 1 qualifying spot he had a bye into the finals. Scarry and James would run to see who would meet Murillo with Conrad Scarry taking the win over James. The finals saw Conrad Scarry take the win over Murillo who had hurt his motor.
In Super Street Outlaw John Urist qualified number one with a 7.402 @ 191. Urist had a bye in the first round and then went on to defeat Chip Havemann before meeting John MacDonald in the finals where Urist won on a holeshot crossing the quarter at 7.43 to Johnny Mac’s 7.40. John MacDonald had a single first round as Lou Proto didn’t make the call, second round Johnny Mac met up with Chris Tuten who was running on 7 cylinders after hurting his motor Friday testing. Tuten just unbolted the rocker and pulled the pushrod out. Tuten was making some major MPH running in the 190’s but he didn’t have enough down low to come around Johnny Mac, So Johnny Mac took the win into the finals where he met up with John Urist.
Drag Radial was one of the most exciting classes this weekend with last year’s champion Jason Lee going faster almost every single pass he made this weekend. Lee went 8.02 on Friday’s test session, first qualifier he went 7.94, second qualifier 7.896, third qualifier 7.891, first round 7.876, in the second round Lee didn’t need everything as Barrale had some issues so he went an 8.67 @133, and in the finals Lee was back into the 7’s with a 7.94. Lee has his four eyed Mustang running extremely consistent. The motor change before the race had really paid off. In the first round Lee met up with Steve Thompson – the lone Nitrous entry in Drag Radial, second round meeting up with above mentioned Andrew Barrale, and in the finals meeting up with Enzo Pecchini. Number one and two from the 2009 season met in the finals with Lee taking out Pecchini 7.94 to 8.02.
Hot Street had two familiar racers meeting up in Don Bowles and Robbie Blankenship with Bowles’ 8.54 taking out Robbie Blankenship. Hot Street had 4 racers attempting to take the Atco win. Bowles, Blankenship, Booze and event sponsor Rick Riccardi in the Downs Ford Motorsport Capri. Riccardi recently had Hell Bent Race cars update his chassis to a 25.5 spec with the work coming out unbelievable. Although Riccardi qualified last he has now gone his quickest E.T. to date. Look for the Downs Ford team to step up the rest of the year and see some great numbers!
In EFI Renegade Dan Rawls had qualified number one as he had the Induction Solutions Nitrous backed Mustang running very strong all weekend. After qualifying with an 8.34, Rawls had a bye run first round and proceeded to lower the Renegade record to 8.31 this year. Second round Rawls was to meet up with teammate Brian Mitchell, but Mitchell was unable to make the lane call. In the finals Rawls met up with Chris Van Gilder who ended up with two singles to get into the finals. First round Van Gilder was to run against Bryan Muth who was unable to make the call and then had a bye second round due to the odd number of cars in the field.
In the Real Street class, teammates Tim Matherly and Jim Breese faced off in the final round after qualifying 1 and 4 respectively. Matherly in his beautiful 2010 Mustang had a tenth on Breese running a 9.50 to Breese’s 9.60.
Pure Street had Steve Gifford taking on Jim St. Charles in the finals. Jim St. Charles took home the win at Atco and also becoming the first Pure Street racer in the 9’s with a 9.99.
Tommy Godfrey who has had a strong hold on Factory Stock the last couple years and qualified in the number one spot again. Godfrey was able to slice his way through the competition fairly easily until he was tree’d by Jay Dold. Dold turned the win light on with a holeshot victory over Godfrey.