It’s the story that the entire drag racing world — from Frankie Taylors’ home state of Texas clear to Kuwait — is buzzing about: the all-out war waged between “the Madman” and Q80 Racing’s Turky al Zafiri at the inaugural Street Car Super Nationals Anarchy At The Arch, held at the Gateway Motorsports Park just outside St. Louis over the weekend.
One of just two events in existence where Outlaw Pro Mods are contested in a run-what-‘ya-brung fashion, the two baddest supercharged and turbocharged cars went toe-to-toe in a homerun derby, if you will, in the shadow of the Gateway Arch, trading the all-time elapsed time marks back and forth in a seesaw battle that played out for three days, going right down to the the final round in the early Sunday morning hours.
Taylor and his Stupid Fast Racing team shocked everyone in the house right off the trailer on Thursday evening, going 5.59 to topple John Stanley’s previous mark of 5.64-seconds. Taylor later stepped it up to a 5.55 to close the night as the top qualifier — and record-holder — in the class. On Friday however, it was Q80’s time to shine as Al Zafiri and tuner Steve Petty got after it in their effort to prove to the world just how quick and fast a turbo car could go.
In Friday’s third session of qualifying, with the sun setting behind the west side grandstands, Al Zafiri uncorked a new all-time best 5.531 at 262.79 miles per hour to snatch the title away from Taylor’s screw-blown Corvette, which had sat out the session to save parts. Taylor, not to be outdone, pulled the cover off his Corvette and brought it to the starting line in a bit of a retaliation-fire on the turbo camp. Taylor’s mount blasted off into the darkness and lit the boards up with a 5.529 at 251.67 miles per hour to reclaim the title, despite shredding the blower belt well before the 1/4-mile finish stripe.
“We really want to get it in the .40’s just because it would be pretty cool, but we’ve done what we wanted to do this weekend. The first pass we had it real soft and it went the .59 and the next pass we stepped it up a little bit. It’s still not running real strong — we’ve been faster in the eighth-mile — but if we can get it in the high 3.50’s or a 60-flat, it should go about a 5.48,” said Taylor on Friday evening.
Video courtesy Urban Hillbilly
With an unscheduled fifth and final qualifying session added on Friday evening, the Q80 team took advantage of the ever-improving conditions, and although al Zafiri did come up short of the elapsed time record with his 5.538, his speed of 270.27 miles per hour broke a virtually inconceivable barrier that got everyone’s attention, from Kuwait to Australia to the furthest reaches of the globe watching in on the internet.
That Q80 car is just sick. We knew they’d run big speeds. We can outrun them to sixty-feet, but they out-backhalf us big time. – Frankie Taylor
On race day, it was a whole new ballgame — you just wouldn’t know it after both Taylor and al Zafiri struggled in the first round of eliminations and were off the throttle well before the finish line. But in the second round, al Zafiri, Petty, Brandon Stroud, and the whole gang at Q80 Racing put together a masterful performance, becoming the first team in the 5.40’s with a stunning 5.472 at 272.83 miles per hour for both ends of the world record for a door car.
Al Zafiri’s defeat of John Stanley that round, paired with Frankie Taylor’s competition single, meant the two quickest cars in all the land were destined for an epic final round matchup.
In a race that couldn’t have been scripted any better, Al Zafiri and Taylor stunned the world with the quickest and fastest side-by-side race in history — by a longshot — as al Zafiri turned on the win light with a record 5.461 at 272,50 to Taylor’s career-best 5.476 at 263.77.
“I’m just at a loss for words,” said PSCA President Mel Roth. “I literally can’t believe what we witnessed here this weekend. Since the 2012 Street Car Super Nationals in Las Vegas, we’ve seen the ET record fall by nearly a full three-tenths of a second. If this isn’t the best doorslammer show in drag racing, I don’t know what is.”
How long these records will stand — or if the opportunity will even exist to better them — are questions no one can answer at this point, but the Street Car Super Nationals anarchy At The Arch was an event no one will soon forget.