There’s a certain recipe that makes Southeast Gassers Association racing special. Take a collection of period-correct machines, add manual transmissions, high-winding engines, aggressive clutch dumps, wheels in the air, and drivers who aren’t afraid to bang gears. Put all of that on an old-school dragstrip and you’ve got something that’s about as close to traveling back in time as a drag racing fan can get.
Rockingham Dragway proved to be the perfect place for that recipe.
The Bowl4Life Foundation Rock Revival brought the Southeast Gassers Association back to “The Rock” for the first time in more than a decade. Competitors first had unfinished business from the rain-delayed RAM Clutches Nationals at Knoxville Dragway before turning around and racing an entirely new event Saturday.
SEGA’s Return To Rockingham Starts With Unfinished Business
Friday is normally test-and-tune day at a Southeast Gassers Association event. That wasn’t the case when SEGA rolled into Rockingham Dragway.
Rain had stopped the RAM Clutches Nationals at Knoxville Dragway in late June, sending the series into its summer break with unfinished eliminations. That meant the first SEGA cars to hit Rockingham in more than a decade were racing for win lights.
Getting down The Rock wasn’t necessarily easy, either. The opening B/Gas and A/Gas passes looked more like cars trying to negotiate the backside no-prep surface during Rockingham’s Dig Or Die events. By the second round, however, the racers had figured out what the track wanted, and the result was some of SEGA’s best racing of the 2026 season.
Jerry Dean Gets Back To Winning In Super Stock
Jerry Dean has become the measuring stick in SEGA Super Stock, but Rob Walden entered Rockingham with proof that the defending champion could be beaten.
Dean and Walden, first and second in points, met in the semifinals after Walden defeated Dean at the previous SEGA event. Following some starting-line drama involving the staging bulbs, Dean advanced and earned a shot at Tony Nowasadski. Nowasadski’s ’56 Chevy Public Enemy became only the third car to appear in a SEGA Super Stock final during the 2026 season, but he couldn’t stop Dean.
The all-Chevrolet final ended with Dean back in the winner’s circle and adding more breathing room to his championship points lead.
Tony Tatgenhorst Breaks Through In C/Gas
C/Gas had largely been controlled by two familiar names coming into the weekend: 2024 champion Todd Oden and defending 2025 champion Jerren Perdue.
Both advanced to the semifinals of the rain-delayed Knoxville event, seemingly setting the stage for another showdown. Perdue did his part by eliminating Randy Kiefer and his Pontiac wagon. Oden didn’t get the opportunity. A red light from Oden handed Tony Tatgenhorst the other spot in the final.
Tatgenhorst was making just his second career SEGA final-round appearance, and waiting in the other lane was the defending champion. His Wasted Wages Chevy II was up to the challenge. Tatgenhorst defeated Perdue to score his first career Southeast Gassers Association event victory, giving the Ross Racing Engines-powered machine a breakthrough win at The Rock.
Ted McKee Starts A Rockingham Winning Streak
The B/Gas final was loaded with Tennessee flavor.
Ted McKee put the Rocky Top Missile into the championship round after getting past Michael Oden in the semifinals. On the other side, No. 2 qualifier Charlie Lee and his Tennessee Charlie Mustang received a bye into the final.
It was a rematch of the Bama Brawl final at Holiday Raceway, where Lee had scored his first victory of the season. This time McKee flipped the script. McKee defeated Lee to capture his third victory of 2026 and, more importantly, started what would become a dominant Rockingham weekend.
Ben Christopher Keeps The Happy Daze Rolling In A/Gas
Everybody in A/Gas had been chasing Ben Christopher and his Happy Daze Chevy II, and the completion of the Knoxville event didn’t change that situation.
Leslie Horne defeated reigning B/Gas champion Ken Rainwater in one semifinal while Christopher dispatched Greg Stelse and The Joker in the other. The win sent Christopher into his fourth consecutive final of 2026.
Horne had another opportunity to stop the Happy Daze machine after red-lighting against Christopher during their Holiday Raceway final. He kept the light green this time, but the result didn’t change. Christopher collected his third consecutive A/Gas victory, further establishing himself as the car everyone else needed to beat.
Rock Revival Turns The Rock Into A Gasser Battleground
With the delayed RAM Clutches Nationals finally in the books, SEGA competitors reset and prepared to do everything again.
The Bowl4Life Foundation Rock Revival on Saturday, August 1, was a standalone championship event and the fifth SEGA race of the 2026 season.
Jerry Dean Completes The Super Stock Sweep
If anybody hoped Friday’s victory would slow Jerry Dean down, they were disappointed.
Dean continued his long-running No. 1 qualifying streak in Super Stock and earned an opening-round bye. He then eliminated Tony Nowasadski for the second time during the weekend. That created another familiar final-round matchup between Dean’s Last Rebel II Chevy II and Rob Walden’s Strych 09 Chevy Impala.
Walden was solid with a run in the 6.70-second range, but Dean was on another level. Dean stopped the clocks at 6.38 seconds and turned on another win light, completing a Rockingham weekend sweep and collecting his fourth SEGA victory of 2026. “Dominator Dean” was certainly an appropriate description after what he accomplished at The Rock.
C/Gas Championship Battle Takes Another Turn
Todd Oden’s Rockingham problems didn’t end with his Friday red light. Oden struggled during Saturday qualifying with rear-end damage, then suffered a transmission failure during his first-round matchup against Heath Adams and the Rusty Bullitt.
For Jerren Perdue, Oden’s mechanical problems created a major championship opportunity, and Perdue capitalized. Friday winner Tony Tatgenhorst qualified No. 1, defeated Allen Lovelady in round one, and used a second-round bye to reach the semifinals. There he met Adams in a rematch of the 2025 Championship Finals final at Shadyside Dragway.
Just like that previous meeting, Adams came out on top. That put Adams against Perdue and the Ghost Of Fulton’s Past Chevy II station wagon in the final. Perdue wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip away. He recorded a 6.08-second elapsed time to defeat Adams’ 6.24 and claim his second victory of the season. Even more impressive, Perdue has reached the final round at every SEGA event in 2026, making consistency his biggest weapon in the C/Gas championship fight.
Ted McKee Goes Back-To-Back At The Rock
Ted McKee came back Saturday and picked up exactly where he left off Friday. The B/Gas points leader qualified No. 1, earned an opening-round bye, and marched through eliminations to reach another final.
Charlie Lee wasn’t as fortunate. Lee had noticed his engine losing power with each pass, and his second-round race against Brad Wimberly and the Southern Sizzler became his final run of the weekend. Significant internal engine damage could potentially sideline Lee for the remainder of the season.
Wimberly advanced before falling to Daniel Haynes and The Patriot Ford Falcon in the semifinals. That created a Ford-versus-Chevrolet final between Haynes, the 2024 B/Gas champion, and the hottest racer in the category.
Haynes threw a strong 5.70-second pass at McKee, and The Rocky Top Missile answered with a 5.65. McKee’s second victory in as many days gave him another huge boost in the standings and reinforced what everyone in B/Gas already knows: right now, the Freeman-powered Rocky Top Missile is going to be extremely difficult to stop.
Ken Rainwater Finally Stops Ben Christopher
The biggest A/Gas story coming into Saturday was simple: could anybody stop Ben Christopher before the final?
Christopher qualified No. 1 with a 5.17-second blast, ahead of Barry Adler’s 5.24 in the Iron Eagle. After an opening-round bye, Christopher dispatched Greg Stelse in round two and appeared headed toward his fifth consecutive final.
Ken Rainwater had other plans. Rainwater was continuing to improve after stepping up from his 2025 B/Gas championship campaign into A/Gas. After defeating Greg Porter and Leslie Horne, he lined up against Christopher in the semifinals. Rainwater pulled off the upset with a holeshot victory, ending Christopher’s streak of consecutive final-round appearances at four. Waiting for Rainwater in his first A/Gas final was a racer who knows plenty about racing for trophies.
Kenneth Phillips worked his way through a stout A/Gas field with the Silver Streak II Corvette. Phillips defeated Dean Jonas, Quain Stott and the new Executioner III Falcon, and No. 2 qualifier Barry Adler to earn his place in the final. Rainwater had already accomplished the difficult task of eliminating Christopher, but Phillips wasn’t interested in allowing him to finish the job.
Phillips defeated Rainwater’s Instigator Chevy II to claim the Rock Revival A/Gas victory. The result also added another layer to an increasingly interesting A/Gas championship picture. Christopher remains the benchmark, but Rockingham demonstrated that the gap is closing.
The Southeast Gassers Association’s return to Rockingham Dragway packed essentially two races into one weekend, and both events produced championship implications. SEGA’s first visit to Rockingham Dragway in more than a decade delivered exactly what the series is built around: naturally aspirated horsepower, manual transmissions, wheels-up launches, hard-fought win lights, and old-school gasser racing where the driver still has plenty of work to do.
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