Valden, Fisher, Martin Headline Winners at Tulsa’s Radial Revenge!

The Osage Casino Tulsa Raceway Park lived up to the hype and the growing phenomenon of drag radial supremacy this weekend with the Radial Revenge Tour’s first stop of 2016. In qualifying, Radial vs. The World lived up to the name and the last few weeks of record breaking performances. Kyle Huettel and Bad9er Racing stood tall with the number one qualifying position with the world record, at the time, of a 3.845 at 197 miles per hour to hold off DeWayne Mills’ 3.853 which also bested the previous record held by Rob Valden who clocked in the #3 qualifying slot with a 3.875 elapsed time.

Chris Groves landed in the number one position in X275 after four rounds of competitive qualifying with a 4.399-second run in the supercharged Ford Mustang hailing from New Mexico, followed by Rich Bruder, Shane Fisher, Clint Downs and Eric Moore rounding out the top five in X275. Justin Martin (Limited Drag Radial), Chad Baker (Limited 275) and Brad Medlock (MX235) also topped their respective ladders heading into four rounds of competitive eliminations in all classes.

RADIAL VS. THE WORLD
The strong 8-car field kicked off eliminations on Saturday afternoon with more big shots and huge upsets. Shawn Ayers and Rob Valden made quick work of their opponents. DeWayne Mills looked to be well on his way to a round win as a turbocharger inlet pipe broke and lost all boost, allowing Brandon McBride and the right hand drive Nissan Skyline to roll around the under powered Mills to a 4.26 and a round one victory over the number two qualifier. Kyle Huettel rolled up next on a competition bye and did not disappoint, lowering the world record once again with a 3.829 second shot at 197.97 miles per hour.

Rob Valden clicked off a 3.895 blast in Andrew Alepa’s C7 as Brandon McBride had troubles on the line to advance to the final round. Huettel rolled the supercharged Corvette into the beams along side the twin turbocharged entry of Shawn Ayers, owned by Fletcher Cox. Ayers ripped a huge holeshot advantage and ran a new personal best of 3.860 to throw the record holder on the trailer, who lowered the bar even more in the semifinals with a 3.812 elapsed time, but came up just seven thousandths of a second (.007) short of the money round.

With an all Pro Line Racing powered final round, Valden ripped off a slight reaction time advantage (.032 to .037) and they both clicked in 1.08 60-foot times. Ayers began to climb the ladder mid-track and had to pedal out of a wheelstand, allowing Valden and the C7 to streak past to a $10,000 victory, posting a 3.863 at 209 miles per hour to Ayers’ pedaling 3.940 at 203.

Andrew Alepa Racing has gone two-for-two in the last few weeks, with wins at Northstar Dragway and now Tulsa Raceway Park. For Alepa and Valden, this marks only the fourth event on the new Corvette entry, already posting two event wins and a brief stint as record holder, proving to the world that they mean business in 2016.

X275
Sixteen of the strongest runners in the country were ready to showdown for the $10,000 sitting atop the purse as round one of eliminations kicked off, which was pretty uneventful except for the Eric Stubbs/Bob Bales matchup. Stubbs turned on the red light, handing the win to Bales…so we thought.

Bales bypassed the scales after spinning on his pass and handed the win back to Stubbs, as bypassing the scales forfeited the run. As round two rolled into the puddle, number one qualifier Chris Groves turned it red against Kit Luong, and Shane Fisher defeated Odie Sturgeon in a side-by-side race, with both cars running in the 4.50 range. Eric Moore and Rich Bruder both advanced to the semifinals as their opponents turned on the dreaded red light. Eric Moore earned his bid to the finals by recording a perfect reaction time beside Luong, rolling down to a 4.531.

Shane Fisher posted a .001 reaction time to post a holeshot victory over the Bruder Brothers, running a 4.480 to the quicker-but-losing 4.457 of Bruder. In a side-by-side turbocharged Ford Mustang battle, Fisher ripped another .008 reaction to take the advantage and never look back as John Kolivas from KBX Performance posted a tuneup in the sleek black Mustang, running a 4.47 elapsed time to secure the event win over Moore’s 4.527.

LIMITED DRAG RADIAL
As LDR is a fresh class, racers are still learning the cars, rules, and combinations. Justin Martin led the field with a 4.28-second shot and was the definition of consistency through eliminations, going a 4.29 on a competition bye in round one and a 4.28 in round two, as he defeated Billy Kruck to earn a bid on one side of the final round. Craig Ondrick and his ProCharger-fed Pontiac Firebird was running through the opposite side of the ladder with a 4.37 in round one and a 4.42 in round two to pit a muscle car showdown in the finals of LDR. Martin grabbed a huge holeshot advantage off the line and carried it to victory with the twin turbocharged Chevrolet Nova, running a 4.37 elapsed time to better the quicker 4.30 from Ondrick in the other lane.

MX235
Brad Medlock practically ran the table in MX235 this weekend during the Radial Revenge Tour and the second MX235 event of the season. Medlock rolled out a new MX235 class record in qualifying, going a 4.701 at 153 miles per hour to best Krusty Ramsey, Jason Collins, and the rest of the 10-car field that loaded into Tulsa this weekend. Medlock continued his domination through eliminations, posting low elapsed time of each round all the way to the finals, where he faced off with Induction Solutions nitrous oxide-assisted racer Kendall Goin.

Goin had a huge holeshot, but lost traction and Medlock raced past to back-up his previously posted world record with another 4.705 elapsed time to claim the event win on the skinny 235 drag radial tires.

Travis Thompson (Limited 275), Bob Bales (Second Chance X275), Brandon Patrick (Second Chance MX235), Steve Scott (Bracket 1) and Dunn Henderson (Bracket 2) also laid claim to the winner’s circle at Osage Casino Tulsa Raceway Park and were crowned as champions in the second annual Radial Revenge Tour, which proved to the world that you never know when the record could fall or when an upset could be made.