At this point, we’re convinced there’s anything that Jason Digby’s Mopar-powered, leaf spring Dodge Dart can’t do.
Digby’s sleek turbocharged Dart, with Lyle Barnett at the controls, once again reset its own leaf spring record at this weekends Outlaw Street Car Reunion IV at the Memphis International Raceway, this time dipping into the four-teens for the very first time. Barnett, a Robins, North Carolina native, cranked out a jaw-dropping 4.193 at 184.57 mph in the third and final qualifier on Friday evening, which was good enough to place him second in the 29-car Limited Drag Radial field — in what was the only leaf spring-equipped car in the field.
Then, during the quarter-final round of eliminations on Sunday, Barnett bettered his numbers yet again, tripping the clocks with a 4.183 at 185.23 mph, compliments of a 1.132 short time in what was a mere .0085-second loss to eventual winner Matt Bell.
“What a weekend; the only way I could be any happier is if we would have taken home the $5,000,” proclaimed Digby, whose profession as a dentist in Fulton, Mississippi inspired his Darts’ unique name. “As usual the Tooth Jerker team had done their homework and we qualified number two out of 29 cars in a class that I had only dreamed of being competitive in.”
Last season, Digby re-worked his Dart from top to bottom and, with engine builder Jeff Burns and tuner Peter Harrell, switched to a single turbocharger combination (a Predator-headed, de-stroked 547-inch Chrysler with a 118 mm turbo), all with the intent of accomplishing precisely what they’ve done thus far in 2017. At the U.S. Street Nationals in Bradenton in late January, Barnett recorded a series of low 4.3-second laps, culminating with a new leaf spring record of 4.31. A month later, Barnett dropped the record by more than half a tenth to a 4.24 at 181 mph, and now, within a span of roughly eight weeks, he and Digby have advanced the standard — one they have a complete monopoly on these days — by .012-seconds.
And the .19 may yet be a teaser of what’s to come, as Barnett shared with Dragzine following his record-setting weekend at Lights Out 8 last month that Harrell believes the car has the power, and the potential, to go four-oh’s — a staggering thought for a big old muscle car on leaf springs.