Team Midwest Mayhem Wins Final Vote Into $10K Drag Shootout!

Team Midwest Mayhem, led by young-gun Joe Hunt, has earned the final team entry into the Horsepower Wars $10K Drag Shootout, earning an impressive 49-percent of the popular vote. Hunt’s squad, comprised of a number of well-known members with equally well-known cars and builds under their belts, beat out Team Busted Nuts, Canadian Chaos, and Andrade Racing for the final spot in the field.

“We’re super excited about it. We were very confident we would perform well in the public vote as we have a pretty solid following on social media. That and quite a few different companies such as Brian Tooley Racing, DIYautotune, and Vasko Speed all stepped up and offered prizes for those that participated in the public vote and tagged friends. The outpouring of support for Team Midwest Mayhem really got us all pumped up, and we’re very thankful,” Hunt says.

“I told all of my guys when we first applied that we may not make it into this deal, but we’re going to give it our best effort, and we continued with that mindset from the top 10 to the top five, and now it’s paid off. Now we’ll continue that same mindset into the build.”

Team leader Joe Hunt

Hunt’s team, which includes driver Joey Hiykel, Chad Fegley, Brad Vasco, Shawn Clark, and Josh Walton, will take on reigning champion Team Bigun, led by Eric Yost and driver Lyle Barnett, and Team Enemies Everywhere, hailing all the way from Queensland, Australia, with Jamie Farmer at the helm. The fourth and final squad of the $10K Drag Shootout, the COMP Cams Dream Team, will be decided later this month — with a host of impressive applicants, including some of those who’s teams missed the cut, entered for positions on the Dream Team, it’s shaping up to be another 10-day barn-burner at the $10K Drag Shootout. The strong level of competition doesn’t phase Midwest Mayhem, though.

“I definitely feel that Team Bigun is the team to beat, not only because they’re a bunch of smart guys that won last year, but this is such a unique competition that their experience having done this before is a big advantage to them,” Hunt says.

 

“We have been strategically planning for this since applications first opened up, I don’t want to give away any of our secrets, but I will say our main focus is the budget,” Hunt adds. “This means pinching every single penny in order to get the absolute best bang for the buck. Focusing on the essentials, while not forgetting the nickel and dime parts of building a race car. This comes down to organization; we fully intend to show up with a very detailed budget and plan to fit any platform we build off of.

“Season 1 [of the $10K Drag Shootout] had me hooked from the get-go, and as entertaining as the build was, my favorite moment is when they hit the track,” Hunt adds. “Seeing how each build played out when it goes from theory, to real life results, and additionally how teams adapt to dial-in their race car.”

Meet The Team

Joey Hiykel: driver, owner and builder of the “Beater Bomb” Mustang. This a garage-built car that has been configured many different ways over the last 10 years. Joey is skilled in driving, tuning and building, especially on the wiring and electronic side of things.

Chad Fegley: owner of The Shop Inc. in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chad is one of the hardest working guys I know by far, often working late into the night during the week and all weekend long building some killer street cars and racecars alike. He built Kyle Lofits’ Unicorn C5 Corvette and the Sketchy Vert, just to name a few. Chad is a skilled fabricator, tuner, and just and all-around jack-of-all-trades. From new-school to old-school, he can do it all. He was also one of the first sponsors of mine and Joey’s racing programs, and has become a great friend

Brad Vasko: owner of Vasko Speed & Performance. Brad is a highly skilled fabricator known for building beautiful turbo kits. His business is still a side work operation. He also works full-time as a GM technician.

Shawn Clark: the wonderful red beard in many of the attached pictures, that’s Shawn. He is Joey and I’s main crewmember when racing. He is highly motivated and a jack-of-all-trades with a race car. His passion for racing meshes perfectly with Joey and I to make a great member of our team who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Josh Walton: another self-taught racecar enthusiast who has been around our local race scene as long as we can remember. He races Rocky Mountain Race Week and Drag Week as well as local no-prep events in his turbo LS Monte Carlo and his wife’s turbo LS Fox-body Mustang.

Stay tuned as the next item on the agenda is the big reveal of the COMP Cams Dream Team, which will once again be led by COMP’s Jeff Reed and combine some of the best talent in the business to take on Midwest Mayhem, Team Bigun, and the Aussie’s of Enemies Everywhere.

The Horsepower Wars $10K Drag Shootout is made possible by some of the leading companies in our industry, including Toyo TiresCOMP CamsTCIK&N FiltersDyna-BattMahle MotorsportsDyna-BattWeld RacingCorsa PerformanceFragolaHolleyE3 Spark PlugsTotal SealMickey ThompsonMoser EngineeringBMR SuspensionMiller Electric, and ARP.

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.
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