The radial tire racing season is here and teams are in full-on thrash mode to prepare for Lights Out 8 when it kicks off February 15th at South Georgia Motorsports Park. James Goad, the owner and driver of the “Reaper SS” from the Discovery Channel’s ‘Street Outlaws’ is one of those who is working to get his car ready for this historic event. Goad has never put the Reaper SS on radials before, but he’s not scared to jump into the ultra-competitive class of Radial vs The World at Lights Out.

For Goad, the switch to running radials on anything is a big change that he had never really thought about making before.

“I’m usually running at No Prep events or street racing, so this is just totally different across the board. Everybody kept telling me ‘put radials on it’, but I don’t race on radials, so I wasn’t interested at the time. The more I thought about it, going to one made sense to support those who have helped me with the car. It will be interesting to see if I like it and how the car will do.  If you’re going to do a radial tire race, Lights Out is the one to go to, so we made the decision to try the radials out,” Goad says.

Getting ready for the race has been a huge undertaking for Goad and his crew. They have been putting in 10 hour days since the choice was made to head to the event. The Reaper SS has been going through a complete transformation to take on a set of Mickey Thompson radials. “We’re changing everything on the car for the race; literally everything. The converter, gearing, 4-link setup, transmission, we took weight out of the car, and moved other weight around in the car. Everything is fresh so it will be interesting to see what happens,” Goad explains of the ongoing work.

Powering the Camaro at Lights Out will be the 756 cubic-inch engine that Goad has been running with four stages of dry nitrous courtesy of a Monty Smith nitrous system. “I’ve never leaned on this motor yet with just one kit, let alone the other three. So, the Reaper SS should absolutely fly when we turn the wick up on the radials,” Goad says.

This may be Goad’s first rodeo on radials, but he isn’t going to Lights Out to be field filler — he wants to go rounds. The team plans on doing some testing at Darlington before the event, then it’s off to SGMP to try and shock the world. “I will promise you this, when I let go of the button all four kits are going to be used, and I’m going to lean on this car harder than I ever have before. I also guarantee that we’re not going down without a fight, that’s for sure,” Goad says.

Make sure you stay tuned to Dragzine as we bring you coverage of Lights Out 8 beginning next week to see how Goad and the Reaper SS fare in Radial vs The World.