Not only does Mark Carlyle’s well-known (and feared) LSX Drag Radial Corvette haul some serious tail on the race track, but it looks great doing it, with styling more akin to a street car than a six-second, 200 mph race car. For that, Carlyle owes much of the credit to the Billet Specialities Street Lite wheels that adorn his newly-crowned-champion Corvette.
Last weekend, Carlyle finished off a stellar championship run in the tightly-contested LSX Drag Radial category, part of the Chevrolet Performance LSX Challenge Series, with a final round appearance at the season-ending race in Indianapolis, where he lost out to Anthony Manna. Carlyle had been the top qualifier with a stout 4.516 at 170.26 mph in the eighth-mile. Carlyle earned a first round single thanks to his qualifying effort, giving him a free run into the final against Manna, who had ripped off a 4.47 just a round earlier to down Brown. In the final, Carlyle’s potent ’07 Corvette hung the hoops and got out of the groove, forcing him to lift. But the championship was his, by just over a round of racing.
Carlyle won the opening event, the Chevy High Performance Nationals, in Atlanta, as well as the Holley LS Fest in Bowling Green, Kentucky, while his nearest challenger, Mike Brown, won the combined NMCA event in Norwalk in August to put himself into contention.
Carlyle runs Billet Specialities’ ultra lightweight, black anodized Street Lite wheels, weighting just 14.5 lbs. on the nose of his twin-turbocharged machine, while a set of Street Lite Double Beadlocks help plane the 2,000-plus horses to the pavement.