Ron Rhodes Wins Leaf Spring, Nearly Doubles Up at No Mercy V

Twice a year at South Georgia Motorsports Park the kings of small tire racing gather for the races put on by Donald Long and Duck X Productions.  Being able to just make the show for one of the heads up classes is the feather in any racer’s cap, going number one on the qualifying sheet is a career highlight, and winning the whole thing is the dream of many that’s only been achieved by a few.  Record setting racer and X275 kingpin Ron Rhodes was able to show his dominance at No Mercy V by nearly winning two classes at one event at No Mercy V this past weekend.

Before he even unloaded his Camaro at SGMP Rhodes had already won the X275 points series at MIR this year. The Induction Solutions-squeezed ’68 Camaro car fits in both the X275 and Leaf Spring classes at Duck X races. On the decision to run both, “The main goal was to win X275 and to run Leaf Spring to show our support for our sponsor Calvert Racing. We went down feeling really good about the car and wanted to win both classes,” he explains.

Rhodes had to work extra hard getting a handle on a tricky surface at SGMP during both qualifying and eliminations, dodging some bullets after kicking the tires on one pass and almost putting the car on the bumper during another.  Rhodes also had a great plan in place to make it through eliminations running two classes when it came to making weight.  The team made some small changes to the car that allowed for quick and effortless weight swaps between rounds that did not upset the chassis tune.

All of Rhodes’ hard work paid off as he was number one qualifier in Leaf Spring with a 4.63 and X275 by laying down a 4.53. The crowning achievement? He then went on to win Leaf Spring over Bryan Marrow, and narrowly lost to Todd Moyer in the X275 final.  Rhodes summed his weekend up by saying, “Qualifying number one at this event is a highlight of my career, especially when you are up against the best of the best in two different classes.”

It wasn’t just the qualifying performance, but the performance on elimination day that makes this Delaware racer so deadly on the track.