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We are back for day two of the Route 66 NMCA/NMRA Superbowl after rain disrupted the second round of heads up qualifying yesterday leaving many racers with just one hit on the track, losing a qualifying session. Today we will have one session of qualifying before moving into eliminations scheduled about 3 PM this afternoon.
It’s the summers’ biggest door car bash, and thanks to the support of Fuel Air Spark Technology, Dragzine will be bringing you all of the action, all weekend long from Route 66.
Not how you want a Saturday at the race track to start... Word from the pits is the driver is working on getting a new windshield for the first round of eliminations.
Billy Banaka secured the number one spot in Pro Mod with a solid 3.89 pass in the first round of qualifying.
Randy Adler was able to negotiate the tricky surface and put down a nice 3.94 pass during the first round of qualifying and is looking to step things up for the next round today.
Richard Holt and his team put the big boy tune-up in their Camaro on a very exciting 3.98 pass where Holt had to wheel the car at the top end. Holt’s plan for the final session is to turn the car up even more and see what the track can handle
Current IHRA Pro Mod champion Dina Parise had a timing issue with her CTS-V during Q1, but the team has it fixed and is ready for Q2.
Current NMCA Pro Mod points leader Scott Critstoffel shook the tires hard first round and is sitting 9th on the ladder. The team plans on some slight adjustments for the final round.
Rob Valden shook the tires pretty hard in Q1 due to the tricky track and is qualified 10th currently.
The top two in Radial Wars Points DeWayne Mills and Daniel Pharris both had issues with the hot track as well qualifying 6th and 8th on the ladder for the first round.
Mark Micke is sitting third after Q1 with a 4.47 pass and a safe tuneup in the G-body.
Number two qualifier Eric Gustafson made some adjustments to his Mustang to run in Radial Wars this weekend and ran a 4.41. The team went to a bigger blower and taller tire to see what the car will do in Radial Wars trim for the first time.
Defending Radial Wars champ Keith Berry went for a wild ride on his 4.31 pass in Q1. The C5 vette went into a MASSIVE wheel stand and came down very hard. The damage to the car was minimal and they will be ready to go for the final round of qualifying today.
The NMCA has picked up MX235 for several races this year which is a class similar to Nitrous X and Ultra Street but running on a 235 series MT Radial tire running various power adder and NA combinations. Shawn Pevlor, Darren Hilterbrand, Chip Pike and Brad Medlock are some of the racers here this weekend. We stopped by Medlock’s pit for a chat this morning who is the current points leader and sits number one in qualifying after one session with a 4.83. Brad has some new parts on the car including a new Pro Torque converter and FAST engine management which has resulted in improved MPH testing in Holly Springs last weekend. Medlock uses Kuntz power and an M&M Transmission in the Mike Duffy built car formerly campaigned by John Urist.
Dwayne Barbaree and Russel Stone are teamed up running Street Outlaw. We caught Dwayne taking some weight off the front end and making some suspension adjustments to better get a hold of the track today.
Mike Jostick is running a new engine combo for VP Fuels/Wiseco Street Outlaw in 2016 with this being his first event for the year. He is running a 450 cubic inch LSX tall deck engine topped with Frankenstein heads and intake assembled by Mike Duke and topped off with NX Nitrous and backed by a transmission from Chuck Johnson at Finishline Transmissions. Brian Viara is the crew chief and partner with the combo with Kostick’s son Michael Jr. also assisting with various crew duties. Pictured is Mike and Carey Kostick who were just married on May 13 after 5 years together.
Randy Truhlar runs out of the Midnight Racing team in Street Outlaw with a 598 BBC built by Shane Grit and backed by a Proformance Transmissions two speed TH 400. Steven Wardlow redid the car including paint roll cage and wiring over the past year or so with this being his first race out since the upgrades. “I’m grateful for all the help from Dave and the guys at Proformance and and Steve Wardlow for taking me under wing and all the help with the car.” – Randy Truhlar.
NA 10.5 Racer Leonard Long has good mile per hour but had trouble on the starting line the past few events and has changed the shocks and springs out back in effort to fix the issues there. They were just putting on the hood scoop in preparation for round two qualifying.
Cal Hayward, Chuck Watson and several other cars in the lanes for QA1True Street were involved in an incident with several cars receiving significant damage. Hayward's multi event winning “Pinky” Mustang has front and rear damage and sadly will not be able to compete in the class this weekend.
We dropped by Troy Williams pit this afternoon, he is one of the trans builders at M&M Transmissions and is running his 1966 Chevy II in MX 235 this weekend for his first event since redoing the car with a new engine combination. The JD Engine and Machine built 430 inch small block Chevy is fed by a pair of Tial 67 MM turbos and managed by a ComSyncEFI system with coil on plug ignition. The paint and body was done by Ricky Morris with the rest of the car built in house at M&M Transmissions. So far the new build has six three hundred foot hits and one full eighth mile pass with good results and performance.
Martin Connely is running Xtreme Street with a BES big block Ford with a Speedtech system with assistance from Robert Lane and Kevin Neal. He ran a 7.70 yesterday and is still looking for more ET. The car rides on TRZ Motorsports suspension and Menscer shocks with trans assistance from Rodney Massengale and Bilbury Transmission in Louisville.
A special match race with Trevor Peterson aka “Fat Jesus” in The Grinch and Boosted GT is scheduled for this evening. We spoke with Jim Plimpton aka Dr. Ford to get the scoop and were told The Grinch has a big Chevy on one system based out of Wisconsin. We asked Plimpton about the match and he said “Boosted GT better add another turbo.” Boosted spun at the hit on his test pass while The Grinch went A to B under power making a nice pass.
Kalie Mills was pushed back after a bit of a leak in her matching Street Outlaw Camaro. A tough break for her as she was not on the first round sheet so will have no data from here this weekend going into round one eliminations later today.
Dwayne Barbaree took over top qualifier in Street Outlaw in a match with KBX entry with a 4.49 at 164. Greathouse landed fourth with a 4.52.
Manny Buginga went A to B improving his time to a 4.54 at 165 in his Disomma powered Bruder Bros. tuned Mustang.
Xtreme Street number one qualifier took a hard left into the wall past the finish line and caught fire. The Safety Safari was quick to respond and he was out of the car on his own but the fire was significant and will likely end his weekend and will take a bit of work for the team to make repairs on the car.
Final Qualfying Results
We stopped by number one Radial Wars qualifier Dewayne Mills pit and spoke with Pro Line Racing’s Jamie Miller about their day. Since we lost a qualifying session due to rain they put an easy tune in the car putting down a 3.98 at 197 MPH. He has been a best of 3.79 in St Louis and is the quickest turbo charged Drag Radial car and the first boosted car in the 3.70’s.
We caught up with Pro Mod racer Tommy Dwyer who runs a blown 1970 Chevelle in the class. He lost a lifter in qualifying also damaging the camshaft which required a significant tear down to repair. The crew was still working on the engine when we stopped by but they were well on their way to reassembly and should be ready for eliminations later.
Jimmy Dahl is here running Xtreme Street this weekend for his second time in the class after debuting at Indy with prompting by his long time friend and NMCA tech guy Dave W. He was running X275 and changed the turbo to a Precision 76 mm piece and class legal tires running an 8.0 today after running 7.80s at 177 in Indy. The engine is from TNT Racing Engines topped with TFS Hi Port heads backed by an ATF transmission and converter.
Joe DeDona struggled with traction today and spoke with Mark Menscer about it then pulling the shocks for a tune up and re-valving over at the Afco trailer before first round elims where he will face off with Jacky McCarty.
Rich Nye is running NA 10.5 this weekend and crew man Frank Edwards was helping to swap a lower gear to compensate for the not so great weather looking for some ET. This is his third even for the year taking a couple of events of to make some engines changes to a smaller cubic inch piece from Hamacker Racing Engines. He runs a G Force transmission from Leaonard Long with help setting up the clutch from James and Crystal Smith in his first years racing the class with NMCA.
Andy Voght is a long time NPS racer based out of Desplains, Illinois working out some new things this weekend in his first event of the year. Long time friend Dave Klaput tunes the car with crew help from his brother Tony, his wife and daughter.
Josh Ritli also runs in Nostalgia Pro Street with a new combination machined by Tommy Dixon this weekend. He made a couple of horsepower only passes to shake the car down and will be turning on the nitrous for round one eliminations. He took some time off after losing an engine back in 2014 and lives just a few miles away from here so came out for what is basically a test session. “ I gotta give Joe Bucaro a shout out for some help this weekend loaning me a battery and some other parts today.” – Josh Ritli
Mike Gucciardo runs this cream yellow car in Pure Street for two years now in the class after switching from Mean Street. He has a fresh 311 in engine topped with Trick Flow heads from Kalui Motor Services out of South Bend, Indiana backed by a Tremec TKO 600 Trans from Walt at Pro Motion. Mike is a 19 year cancer survivor sporting a Livestrong badge on the front of the car. He gets help from Bruce Hmminger, Mike Washington and Ed Curtis from time to time. This is the second event for the new combo after it’s debut in Columbus, Ohio. They plan on doing a lot of testing before Bowling Green.
Dave Theisen runs NA 10.5 in his Firebird with Uratchco Racing Engines power topped with heads from Slick Rick and a Proformance Transmission. He is qualified third with an 8.08 at 171 MPH for his third event for 2016. Theisen moved over from the All Motor at Milan last year. Dave and Kevin were pulling the wheels off to swap to a new set of slicks.
James Noel is an NPS racer running a Wally Stroupe built 69 Mustang in the class powered by a small block Ford from Bennett Racing for his second race in a heads up class after usually running Top Sportsman both with the NMCA and NHRA Division 2. Shawn Morrow and Noel race together and have both their cars here this weekend. Paint and body is by Spearman Brothers with Dan Robelo doing the custom air brush work.
For something a little different we stopped and talked to Ryan Bell running this Corvette in NA 10.5 with an SB2 small Chevy based out of Brooklyn, NY. The rear suspension is a custom leaf spring set up with Cal Tracks and all the chassis work done in house by Ryan. This is the teams first race and they plan to run other events getting a feel for the class and is looking to upgrade the car and engine and come back for a full season next year if everything works out.
We stopped by Mike DeMayo’s pit and caught up with Mike and Gabby Labiosa while they were swapping the carburetor. He sits second in class today with an 8.02 at 168, is last years champion and is second in points this year so far. Things are going well for Team Powerhead.
Jesse Coulter normally runs the LS series in Real Street and is here this weekend running Xtreme Street with his third Gen Z28 with power from Brian Tooley. Jesse built the car himself in his shop Jesse's Garage. He is partnered with his friend Rick Ball from RC Components who is well known in motorcycle circles and is a wheel, brake rotor and exhaust parts manufacturer now entering the automotive racing wheel market with this being the debut event for the wheels. He run an RPM transmission and Pro Torque converter.
Tony “The Sandman” Williams earned a win in round one with his best pass of the weekend running a 4.08 at 185 mph
Greg Seth-Hunter has one of the more interesting Pro Mod combos at this event with a MMR mod motor under the hood of his Mustang. Seth-Hunter ran a 4.07 at 185 to pick up the win, and move on to round two on Sunday.
Kevin Fiscus overcame some transmission issues from Q3 to pull off the biggest upset of the round taking out number one qualifier Randy Adler running a crisp 3.85 at 207.
Jordan Pennington moves on to round two in Factory Super Car with a 8.58 at 159 hit in round one.
Chuck Watson picked up over his best run in qualifying ripping off a 8.45 to move on to round two of Factory Super Car
Jeff Rudolf was having problems all weekend in Nitrous Pro Street and was finally able to pull it all together in round one to take out the number three qualifier with a 7.48 at 184.
After a lot of adjustments in the pits Keith Berry was able to keep the nose down on his Corvette and rip off a 4.03 in round one of Radial Wars action.
Points leader DeWayne Mills kept his title hopes alive in Radial Wars running a 3.96 at 198 to defeat Greg Powrie in round one.
Rob Valden set low ET of the round behind the wheel of Andrew Alepa’s C7 Corvette in round one of Radial Wars. The team is looking to make some big moves on Sunday to push towards an event victory.
Ray Litz defeated Alan Felts in the first round of Street Outlaw running a new personal best of 4.58. This is Litz’s first season in Street Outlaw and the car is starting to show some serious promise to be a player in the class.
Number one qualifier Dwayne Barbaree had a bye in round one when John Urist could not make the call. Barbaree set low ET for the round ripping off a booming 4.46.
Charles Hull finally was able to get a handle on his new combo running a 4.69 to take out number three qualifier Phil Smith in round one of Street Outlaw.
Round One Results
The first pair out in the new Pro Stock class was Nino Cavallo based out of Melbourne, Australia with his 2012 Avenger and Rob Pearce with his 53 Studebaker with Cavallo taking the win with a 7.11 at a 7.42 for Pearce. The other pair here this weekend is number one qualifier Steve Graham and Mervin Moyer Jr.. Graham would advance in his white GXP putting both Bob Book powered cars in the final tomorrow.
Gardner Stone pulled a nice wheel stand in Holley EFI Factory Super Car on a single where Michael Skinner was not able to make the round running an 8.83 at 152 MPH on the run.
Vic Brum hails from Arizona and made the trip “back East” with his 1970 Chevelle to run ARP Nitrous Pro Street qualifying eighth with a 9.08 at 159 MPH. He put up an 8.30 to advance to round two over Dave Harris and will meet with Jennifer Brooke Rice in round two who was top qualifier in class.
Jarod Wenrick would advance to round two over Charlie Cooper with a 4.59 at 160 in Street Outlaw.
Street Outlaw racer Joel Greathouse took out Randy Trulhar in a very nice 4.49 at 166 MPH.
Shawn Pevlor had the earned single as top qualifier laying down low ET with a 4.67 at 155 MPH.
