We are at it early this morning catching the sun coming up here in Bradenton for the NMCA 2016 season opener with a nice turnout of racers this year and several racers staying over from last weekends sister event with the NMRA.

Martin Connelley is debuting a new car owned by Jason Martin this weekend and has run a 7.78 so far using a big block Ford prepped by BES with a Kevin Neal nitrous system while working out some gremlins in the new car. Tin Soldier Race Cars helped out mounting the front end just before Martin left for Florida.

Randy Eakins is running in the Holley EFI Factory Super Car this weekend but he is down one cylinder and qualified fifth and hopes to earn points in round one today. Eakins has run NMCA before but not for some time campaigning a Drag Pack Challenger and this car the last couple of years. “It’s nice to be here for the NMCA and I like the schedule and hope to get to all of the events this year” Randy Eakins

Kevin Lumsden has made a few changes to his GM Performance Stock Camaro in the off season including the transmission gear ratios and swapped from a Moser 9 inch to a Strange 12 bolt which takes a little less power to turn.

Chris Holbrook is qualified third in Holley EFI Factory Super Car with his Cobra Jet which he got back in 2010 as a 352 pushrod engine and was the only one built with that combo. He switched to the 5.4 combo before this Coyote engine. The NHRA Stock Eliminator rules are very strict as far as modifications but there is some room and allowances for engine builders to make their own improvement and Holbrook is well known in the industry and has worked with Ford Performance division in development of some of their pushrod crate engines in the past. He uses Comp Cams and has sponsorship from Ford Performance, Mickey Thompson Tires, A Tech Trailers and Flying A Motorsports.

Scott Libersher is another racer at NMCA for the first time coming over from NHRA to run the Factory Super Car class and run an NA 427 combo in this 2015 Camaro. He was here testing earlier this week with the new engine running in the high 8’s and run 9.0’s here in competition. He also has a supercharged COPO he tested last fall and plans to bring it to the next NMCA stop in Commerce and should be right with the Fords there.

Pro Mod Action had Josh Green facing Ray Commisso with both racers getting into tire shake. Green moved towards the center and shut it down with Commisso (near lane) recovering and moving on to round two where he will pair up with Robert Abbott.

Richard Cohen won his match by default when Frank Cersosimo bumped through the lights before the tree activated. He will face Thomas Jones in the next round.

Dave French was paired with Rick Mills in Ross Racing Pistons Outlaw 632 but made a single after Mills seemed to me misfiring before the burnout and was pushed back.

Ken Quartuccio advanced with another run in the 4.40’s over Steve Cannizzo.

Mickey Thompson Radial Wars had number one Woo! man Keith Berry with the earned single and Frank Meshaw scoring a 4.08 win over Mark Woodruff who struggled a bit this weekend and was bit by a faulty tire pressure gauge that basically negated any data and tuning that had done to get down the track Friday and Saturday.  Keith likes to take a few moments to himself before a pass to get in the right frame of mind.

Mark Micke faced off with Paul Major taking the win as Major lost his engine resulting in a little down time for cleanup.

Attrition was the name of the game for round one of Edelbrock Xtreme Street with Tony Alm scoring a win over Bill Trovato with a 7.89 at 173 and Henry Lee advancing over Ray Cox’s Pontiac.

Eric Kenward set low ET again running a 7.65 at 174,faster than his earlier run setting himself up for a 2016 record with his qualifying 7.67 ET but the day isn’t over yet.

Leonard Long scored a come from behind win over Dan Bowles in round one of Quick Lane NA 10.5 with an 8.25 to Bowles 8.27.

NA !0.5 number one qualifier Dwight Ausmus put up an 8.05 at 168 on a single run after qualifying with a 7.92.

Kevin Lumsden scored a wheels up launch in Chevrolet Performance Stock running 10.63 at 124 over Glenn Pushis. he will give up lane choice to Ronnie Hackleton who ran a 10.60.

Once into the semi finals of Pro Mod we had two local racers Ken Cruz and Richard Cohen left in with Ray Commisso and randy Adler. Kruz had an unfortunate leak when they went to fire the car in the water box giving Commisso a single where he ran a 3.902 at 191. Adler and Cohen has close lights with Adler netting the round win with a 3.903 at 196 to Cohen’s 4.08.

The Holley EFI Factory Super Cars had a great showing for their NMCA debut with eleven cars making it for round one. Chris Holbrook, Glenn Pushis and Brunno Massel making it through to the semi finals where Holbrook launched into a wheel stand against Pushis as the cars left the line. Pushis would come out with the hole shot round win with his 8.85 to Holbrook’s quicker 8.79 setting up an all COPO final.

In Wiesco Street Outlaw Jarod Wenrick had a single in round two putting up a 4.59 at 159. There were two other cars left in with Phil Hines scoring a win over Dwayne Barbaree with a 4.53 at 162 MPH with Barbaree falling off pace to a 5.10 at 158 setting up the all Procharger final.

Commisso had lane choice by .001 and took the right lane but gave up the tree to Adler. It didn’t matter though as Adler had his own leak and got in his own fuel and spun the tires with Commisso going on to a 4.08 at 188 earning the win. Commisso is running a new car this year tuned by Bob Newberry who is also tunes for Cruz and Cohen. Commisso is based out of Canada and uses Al Billes horsepower with a roots combo and has nine runs on the new set up since getting here Tuesday. The longtime NHRA racer is planning to run NMCA and PDRA for 2016 and keeps the car at Newberry’s home in Gainseville, Florida.

Pushis left first in the final with a .142 reaction to Massel’s .159 but was running 8.8’s and could not stay in front of Massel’s 8.55 at 158 making this the COPO win in heads up competition.

Ross Racing Pistons Outlaw 632 had two racers dominating today running 4.40’s like clockwork. Curt Steinbach running a clutch combo and Ken Quartuccio with his familiar 69 Camaro automatic. Quartuccio had lane choice going into the final with a 4.417 from the previous round with Steinbach winning the reaction time game and running a 4.454 at 166 in the final, however that was not good enough as Quartuccio put up a 4.424 at 163 to get by and earn the win again as he won here last year as well.

In ARP Nitrous Pro Street we had just two cars here in Florida which is not a great turnout for this class which has good participation at the northern tracks. 2015 class champ Joe Bucaro was number one qualifier over John Trobiani who was struggling with gremlins this weekend. In the final Bucaro put up a 7.37 at 185 with Trobiani running a 9.52 at 150 on the motor as his nitrous didn’t activate.

Ronnie Hackelton met with Kevin Lumsden in the final of Chevy Performance Stock with both drivers having near identical reaction times, a .091 and.092 respectively. Ronnie had a slight ET advantage going in and came out with the win running a 10.619 at 124.32 to Lumsden’s 10.626 at 125.55 with the margin of victory being just .0082. Hackelton will have another car just like this one running in Atlanta which will driven by his Gran-daughter.

Joe Middle Jr. met with Ron Tiller in the ATI Performance Nostalgia Super Stock final round with Tiller going red and Middle breaking the transmission. He had an eventful weekend losing his hood scoop twice on the top end and running the final without it due to the significant head wind we had here today.

Mickey Thompson Radial Wars had several cars qualify in the 4.0’s with Dewayne Mills, Keith Berry and Daniel Pharris making it through to the semi finals with Pharris having the bye where he moved left and let out to a 4.69 at 121. Mills treed Berry by .010 and the race was on with the cars side by side to the stripe. Mills would get there first with a 4.002 at 201 earning the round over Berry’s 4.016 at 188 MPH for a .020 margin of victory.

In the final it would be Pharris out first with an .040 to Mills’ .084. Pharris had to pedal the car a bit running a 3.990 at 198 with Mill’s setting low ET of the event with a 3.971 at 202.29 making history here for the first side by side threes in NMCA competition, it just wasn’t quite enough to get in front of Pharris’ better reaction time. Pharris has put a new team together for 2016 including Josh Ledford on the keyboard with great results so far this year.

Edelbrock Xtreme Street also had some tight racing this weekend with Eric Kenward coming away with the record 7.67 but falling to the Straightline Performance 2002 Camaroo of David Hutnick in the semi finals after slowing to a 7.710 at 174 to Hutnick’s 7.68 at 179. Newcomer to NMCA Martin Connelley had a single after his round two win over Henry Lee and took the tree for the round giving up lane choice to Hutnick. Connelley (far lane) shown with Henry Lee.

Connelley scored a much better reaction time with an .035 and ran a 7.82 at 177 for his effort but he 2015 Xtreme Street Champion Hutnick laid down a 7.73 at 174 to earn the win.