It’s hard enough to win one championship in a heads-up drag racing class during the course of a calendar year – the competition is usually so stiff, and the travel and equipment demands so great, that it’s difficult to win a race let alone a championship.
Mark Micke, of Jefferson City, Missouri, driving Jason Carter’s gorgeous blue 1978 Malibu, has eclipsed that by a wide margin. The team, along with crewmember Chad Simpson and engine builder Kris Nelson of Nelson Competition, Inc., have absolutely dominated the competition everywhere they’ve entered this year.
In ADRL Pro Drag Radial events, of which there were three, the Micke/Carter team went to the final round in the first event and the semifinals in the other two, landing themselves a points championship in the process.
Over in the NMCA, in the highly-competitive Super Street 10.5W class, Micke and Co. won four of the five events they entered, with Micke becoming the first-ever driver to win both an NMCA Pro Street title and NMCA Super Street title (he captured Pro Street in his supercharged Camaro back in 2008).
Not only did they take home these two titles in the span of one year, they did it in the process of attending 19 events as of this writing, with more on the schedule yet to come in 2013. And they did it in two different disciplines of racing, if you will.
Micke explains that it’s a team effort, and at the track it’s only the three of them working on the car, along with assistance from some great sponsors and support systems back at home. They’ve been thrilled with the help from Nelson Competition, Garrett Turbos, and The Shock Nerd, Mark Menscer of Menscer Motorsports.
“It’s really Jason that makes it all come together. He’s the one that makes sure we have everything we need to perform well,” says Micke.
Two different styles of tire, eighth-mile versus quarter-mile racing, one car, one team, two titles. We’d have to say that’s a pretty successful year.