Steve Jackson, perhaps best known by his racing moniker “Killin’ Time,” has never been one to store his thoughts away and toss out the key.

A war of words has erupted in recent weeks between Jackson, a sly former grudge racer from Beech Island, SC., and fellow southern small-tire racer Keith Szabo, a longtime heads-up racer that hails from Gainesville, Ga., and the result is a rivalry that fans of doorslammer racing are eating up.

Any sport, be they of the stick-and-ball variety or motorsports, thrives off of intense rivalries. Think Lakers and Celtics, Yankees Red Sox, Johnson and Bird, Ali and Frazier, Duke and North Carolina. Now, Jackson and Szabo may not necessarily be a high profile rivalry, but in a sport that’s become so squeaky clean at the top that a good rivalry couldn’t even be fabricated, we’ll have to take what we can get.

Jackson and Szabo recently engaged in a not-so-friendly little match race at the Macon Dragway in Georgia – and yes, they’re keeping score on these – where Killin’ Time got the best of Szabo’s turbocharged mount with on off-the-gas 4.59. The best part however is the lengthy staging duel concluded with Jacksons’ throttle blip as he attempts to get in the head of his foe.

We’re hearing that the more entertaining part of this whole meeting at Macon was left out of the video edit, including a supposed but unsubstantiated claim that Jackson was quoted as saying that he was going to make Szabo his – how do we put this – female of the dog or other carnivorous mammal. For the sake of us being able to publish the video here, it’s probably best the colorful commentary was left out.

With a couple of outspoken racers involved in this one, this rivalry is sure to entertain during the 2012 season.