2017 NMCA World Street Finals Coverage From Indianapolis

It’s championship Sunday here at the NMCA World Street Finals, and with virtually every class title still up for grabs, there’s certain to be a bit of drama as we work through today’s elimination rounds.

NA 10.5’s Leonard Long has endured the kind of weekend that would make many question their very participation in this sport, but as the points leader, if there’s any weekend to forge on, this is the one. Long and his crew have been fighting issues with their combination all weekend long, pulling their transmission to change gear ratios in the oppressive heat, and, just when they though they had a handle on it, punched a hole in the block and oiled the racetrack in the final qualifying session. Already fatigued, Long and his crew stayed up until 1 a.m. last night changing engines, got themselves a scant amount of shut-eye, and were back at it this morning checking and double-checking things before firing the engine. Long has a healthy lead in the standings, but should he bow out early and Dwight Ausmus win the race, the title could be pulled from Long’s grasp.

Round One Ladders

St. Clair Shores,  Michigan’s David Dudek runs this spectacular 1969 Plymouth HEMI Roadrunner in the F.A.S.T. (Factory Appearing Stock Tire) class, which is running here as an exhibition eliminator this weekend. Dudek was the number one qualifier with a 10.09 at 137 mph, and has been into the nines on occasion previously.

Per the rules, Dudek runs the factory air cleaner, correct carburetors, intake manifold, exhaust manifolds…sharing “it has to look the part.”

“Inside, everything is legal to do. The intake is all ported, the heads are CNC ported, it has titanium intake valves. It’s got 14.3:1 compression, 4.25-inch crank, only .070-inch over, so its a 496. It also has a 55mm roller camshaft core in there…we’re restricted to 2.5 inch exhaust and you have to run the factory tires that it came from the dealer with. At the end of the last year, I made five nine-second passes in a row.”

Dudek has owned the car for four years, and confirms that it has, during its ownership, been  largely a weekend warrior racecar.

In Nitrous Pro Street, Joe Bucaro, driving the Oldsmobile Cutlass borrowed from Don Baskin, powered to victory over Josh Rilti in decisive fashion, a 7.34 to a 7.58. Also completed earlier, Haley Rounsavall scored a big holeshot victory in Chevrolet Performance Stock over Jesse Wilson, driving Kelly Pierce’s Camaro, 10.23 to a quicker 10.22.

The final Pro Mod finale of the season came down to Mark Luton and Steve Summers, who, with the early departure of Jason Hamstra, had to win the race to claim the championship. And convincing fashion, he did just that, clicking off low elapsed time of the weekend with a 3.80 to oust Luton’s game 3.92. Summers jumped up two spots this weekend to claim his second series championship.

In Factory Super Cars, incoming championship hopeful Chuck Watson, Sr. nailed Gardner Stone to the tree, taking a holeshot-aided victory, 8.30 to quicker-but-losing 8.29. Although Watson lost the title Scott Libersher earlier in the day, he’ll carry some momentum into the offseason. In NA 10.5, number one qualifier Robbie Blankenship ran the table, dipping his Ford Mustang into the 7.80s in the final, with a low elapsed time of the weekend 7.89 to defeat Dwight Ausmus’ 7.97.

DeWayne Mills claimed the Radial Wars crown here at Indy, ousting newly-minted series

champion Josh Klugger in an all-PLR final, a 3.88 to a 3.92, after nearly identical reaction times. In Street Outlaw, Daniel Pharris finished off an epic class debut with his new ’95 Cobra, pedaling his way to victory over new series champion Charlie Cooper, 4.42 to 4.45, while Nick McGrath singled to the Xtreme Street victory when Jessie Coulter was unable to make the call.

Final Results

Mary Esther, Florida’s Ryan Milliken sits sixth in the Street Outlaw qualifying order with a 5.10 at 153 mph in his unique Cummins diesel-powered ’66 Nova. Milliken’s all-billet, 6.8-liter (415 cubic-inch) mill produces 2,000 horsepower at the flywheel and upwards of 2500-3000 lb./ft. of torque with an 88mm turbocharger. Milliken leaves the line at 3,000 RPM, producing 24 lbs. of boost, shifts at 5,000, and redlines at 5,700, peaking at 73 lbs. of boost (he says it will produce 80 lbs.)

Milliken utilizes a close-ratio three-speed Turbo 400 with a lock-up converter to keep the load on the engine, sharing that “it gets pissy if it gets unloaded — without load and boost it won’t go anywhere.” Tipping the scales at 3,510 lbs. — the engine itself, surprisingly, weighs roughly equal to a big-block Chevrolet despite its physical size — Milliken has been a 4.85 best with the car.

With the NMCA World Street Finals in his backyard, Trafalgar, Indiana resident Keith Kriech decided to drag his beautiful ’71 Chevelle he’s owned for 32 years out of the mothballs to do some Open Comp racing this weekend. Kriech last drove the car in 2013 when he trekked to Syracuse, New York and “did a little street racing” with it. Since then, the car has sat in his garage while he toyed with the other muscle cars in his collection — a ’66 Nova, a 2014 1LE Camaro, a 1999 1LE Camaro, and a 1967 El Camino — but got the itch to run the Chevelle in his first trips down the track in a number of years.

Sporting power from a 454-inch big-block Chevrolet, the Chevelle is a true street-driver, with some minor upgrades from factory, including 4.88 gears, 33-spline axles, a Turbo 400 and Coan converter, and aftermarket upper and lower control arms. On 295 Drag Radials, the 3,975 lb. car has been a 6.02 best in the 1/8-mile in its life, but struggled to an 11.19 in this morning’s qualifying. “I don’t really know what’s going on….it’s probably just because it sat too long, might beed new plugs,” Kriech comments.

Marty Stinnett was one of the few Radial Wars drivers to improve in the heat today, running 3.950 to solidify himself at second in the order. That, he feels, may preclude him from earning an early round competition bye that would help him greatly in his championship push. As it stands, Stinnett is sandwiched in between the psuedo-team cars of DeWayne Mills and Josh Klugger (both Pro Line-powered cars), who could potentially have a blocker scenario in mind.

Stinnett has been down the track every run in the heat this weekend, giving him confidence going into Sunday’s eliminations, which will be run in likewise hot, sunny, and greasy conditions. “We need to at least equal Josh to get the championship. At the end of the day, I don’t care if it’s my best friend in the other lane, I want to win, and I won’t kid you, I really want to win that championship,” he says.

Wisconsin racer Jeff Frees has waited nearly an entire year to debut his beautiful 1968 Plymouth Barracuda, and he’d tell you it’s been worth the wait. Frees, who finished fifth in Nostalgia Super Stock points a year ago with his ’64 Belvedere, purchased the ‘Cuda from Michael Sanders (it previously sported a flame paint scheme and the namesake “Hustlin’ Hoosier”).

The car sports a Todd Goodwin-built 572-inch Wedge, which propels it to 9.50’s in the 1/4-mile in the B/FX category. Frees will be transplanting a new 598-inch Wedge next season to step it up the 8.50 index class next season. “Next year’s going to be great. We’re all set…the engine is just about done, Todd is going to dyno it, so it should actually run better than 8.50.”

“We worked long and hard all winter to get it done, and then I had a neck surgery and so I couldn’t race it all year. I’ve had it done pretty much all year, and asked my son to drive it, but we haven’t had it out. It was tough, because I had a neck brace on all summer. But it turned out great and I’m really happy with how it turned out. A guy that works for me stripped it and re-painted it, and we added a swing-out bar and re-painted the cage and all the bars up front.” The car is set off by sleek RC Components wheels.

Final Qualifying Results

Following five events contested in five different states over the last seven months, the NMCA championships come down to this — the season-ending World Street Finals at the fabled Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis.

New Jersey native Joe Clemente is making his N/A 10.5 debut this weekend behind the wheel of a gorgeous, all-new Mustang powered by a Tom Martino-built (former NHRA Pro Stock standout Tom Martino) 411 cubic-inch small-block Chevrolet. The bullet is topped with a Bob Book-prepared carburetor and CFE cylinder heads. C&F Chassis in Pleasant Valley, New York built the car over the last year and Clemente took delivery on August 28th, meaning he and his team, including crew chief Rich Concato, only had time to make two short hits in testing in Maryland before arriving here at Indy. That has forced them to sort out their combination virtually from scratch in a challenging 4,000-plus feet of air.

Clemente and crew have already pulled the transmission twice this weekend to adjust gear ratios to find the sweet-spot in the combination.

Clemente is a former NMRA Renegade competitor, sharing that he made the jump to naturally-aspirated racing after becoming good friends with Concato, who runs a 7-second N/A car of his own. “We’re learning as we go here. We knew we needed to change the transmission out, so we have a spare with us and now we’re working on changing up ratios.”

Clemente went an 8.22 at 166 yesterday in yesterday. “We’re very happy with the speed, but not the elapsed time, commented Concato. “We didn’t have anything in it down low to get it to E.T. We were right there in speed with the other guys. We just don’t have data. It’s a brand new car. But if we can get it to run 8.07, 8.06 this weekend, we’d be pretty happy.”

With a 425-point lead, Wilmington, Illinois’ Scott Libersher would seem a virtual lock for the Factory Super Cars championship, but he’s not taking any chances, knowing any misstep could easily open the door for second-place Chuck Watson, Sr.

“If I qualify and just get down the track, I’ve got it. I brought two cars just in case we have a mechanical failure,” he comments with a laugh. “We’re a racing family and my son, Lenny, is going to race the other car (a 2015 model COPO Camaro). We have four cars here…I like things in pairs,” he says. (Libersher owns two 2015 models and two 2016’s, both matching).

Lenny drove the ’15 model car to an 8.16 — a best for the family fleet — earlier this year, while son-in-law Dan Condon drove the other ’16 model to the quartefinals at the NHRA U.S. National earlier month with laps in the 8.3-second range.

“Super Dave” Adkins is sitting third in a super-tight points battle in Radial Wars with Marty Stinnett, Josh Klugger, and Adam Preston, and if that isn’t enough, he’s also working to get a handle on a virtually brand new LS engine combination that he debuted at the Norwalk race. After breaking the mains in the cast iron LS block in Chicago in July, T.J. Grimes of Baker Engineering assembled a new tall-deck mill built around a Noonan billet block, sporting Baker billet inline cylinder heads with a new Thompson billet intake. Grimes put a new crankshaft and longer rods in this piece, all built to withstand the 60-plus pounds of boost they push through it to get it into the 3-second zone on 315 radials. The new block has removed 120 pounds from the nose of the car, which resulted in wheelstand issues that plagued them in Norwalk. The new piece is still fed by a pair of 88mm turbochargers.

With the Impala still tipping the scales on the heavy side for the combination, Adkins confirmed he has a new-to-him 1970.5 Camaro he purchased from Randy Weatherford that he will be putting another identical twin-turbo LSX in for Radial vs the World competition next year. With his combination, he can run at 2,250 pounds, which ought to thrust him right into competitiveness.

Qualifying Round One Results