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Following five events contested in five different states over the last seven months, the NMCA championships come down to this — the season-ending World Street Finals at the fabled Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis.
In addition to the presence of the Chevrolet Performance Challenge Series, the Nostalgia Super Stock contingent are contesting their NSS All-Stars event this weekend at the World Street Finals…and there are a slew of them on the property!
Mikey Rees is piloting Troy Coughlin’s NHRA Pro Mod C7 Corvette today in testing, with the 1/4-mile clocks turned on. Rees hooked hard right at the 200-foot mark in this afternoon’s session and aborted the run.
New Jersey native Joe Clemente is making his N/A 10.5 debut this weekend behind the wheel of a gorgeous, all-new Mustang powered by a Tom Martino-built (former NHRA Pro Stock standout Tom Martino) 411 cubic-inch small-block Chevrolet. The bullet is topped with a Bob Book-prepared carburetor and CFE cylinder heads. C&F Chassis in Pleasant Valley, New York built the car over the last year and Clemente took delivery on August 28th, meaning he and his team, including crew chief Rich Concato, only had time to make two short hits in testing in Maryland before arriving here at Indy. That has forced them to sort out their combination virtually from scratch in a challenging 4,000-plus feet of air.
Clemente and crew have already pulled the transmission twice this weekend to adjust gear ratios to find the sweet-spot in the combination.
Clemente is a former NMRA Renegade competitor, sharing that he made the jump to naturally-aspirated racing after becoming good friends with Concato, who runs a 7-second N/A car of his own. “We’re learning as we go here. We knew we needed to change the transmission out, so we have a spare with us and now we’re working on changing up ratios.”
Clemente went an 8.22 at 166 yesterday in yesterday. “We’re very happy with the speed, but not the elapsed time, commented Concato. “We didn’t have anything in it down low to get it to E.T. We were right there in speed with the other guys. We just don’t have data. It’s a brand new car. But if we can get it to run 8.07, 8.06 this weekend, we’d be pretty happy.”
Daniel Pharris surprised the masses on Thursday when he opened the back door of his trailer and unloaded this ’95 Cobra rather than the 2016 Pro Modified Mustang he’s been campaigning for the majority of the season. Pharris purchased this Street Outlaw-legal car from John Kolivas, sporting a 417-inch small-block with a 98mm turbo. Pharris cranked out a stout 4.53 in the afternoon heat.
Factory Super Cars points leader Scott Libersher.
With a 425-point lead, Wilmington, Illinois’ Scott Libersher would seem a virtual lock for the Factory Super Cars championship, but he’s not taking any chances, knowing any misstep could easily open the door for second-place Chuck Watson, Sr.
“If I qualify and just get down the track, I’ve got it. I brought two cars just in case we have a mechanical failure,” he comments with a laugh. “We’re a racing family and my son, Lenny, is going to race the other car (a 2015 model COPO Camaro). We have four cars here…I like things in pairs,” he says. (Libersher owns two 2015 models and two 2016’s, both matching).
Lenny drove the ’15 model car to an 8.16 — a best for the family fleet — earlier this year, while son-in-law Dan Condon drove the other ’16 model to the quartefinals at the NHRA U.S. National earlier month with laps in the 8.3-second range.
Billy Glidden is continuing to fight issues with his new-to-him ’68 Camaro that have kept him from making a representative run with the new Sonny Leonard EFI combination. Glidden, rushing to prep for an afternoon run, said the fuel injection has hampered his efforts thus far. He missed the Pro Mod field here at the U.S. Nationals in his return a few weeks ago and skipped the Charlotte event to test at the Shakedown in Norwalk, but said he plans to attend the St. Louis national event next weekend.
Michael Biehle was a regular competitor with the NMCA in previous seasons, earning the series championship in 2015 with his late-model Ford Mustang. Biehle has refocused his efforts on the NHRA Pro Mod series in 2017, but with the World Street Finals a short haul from his central Indiana home, he’s brought his car and 1/4-mile combination out to run with the Xtreme Pro Mod class’ best.
N/A 10.5 points leader Leonard Long and his crew were busy this afternoon trying to diagnose an issue causing the car to struggle early in the run. On an earlier test hit the Mustang was a tenth slow to sixty-feet.
“Super Dave” Adkins is sitting third in a super-tight points battle in Radial Wars with Marty Stinnett, Josh Klugger, and Adam Preston, and if that isn’t enough, he’s also working to get a handle on a virtually brand new LS engine combination that he debuted at the Norwalk race. After breaking the mains in the cast iron LS block in Chicago in July, T.J. Grimes of Baker Engineering assembled a new tall-deck mill built around a Noonan billet block, sporting Baker billet inline cylinder heads with a new Thompson billet intake. Grimes put a new crankshaft and longer rods in this piece, all built to withstand the 60-plus pounds of boost they push through it to get it into the 3-second zone on 315 radials. The new block has removed 120 pounds from the nose of the car, which resulted in wheelstand issues that plagued them in Norwalk. The new piece is still fed by a pair of 88mm turbochargers.
With the Impala still tipping the scales on the heavy side for the combination, Adkins confirmed he has a new-to-him 1970.5 Camaro he purchased from Randy Weatherford that he will be putting another identical twin-turbo LSX in for Radial vs the World competition next year. With his combination, he can run at 2,250 pounds, which ought to thrust him right into competitiveness.
Jessie Coulter has a strangehold on the Xtreme Street points, and he proved why in the opening session this evening with a 4.761 to pace the 12-car field. Only Bart Tobener was in the ballpark with his 4.776.
Marty Stinnett sits in the cat-bird seat in the Radial Wars title chase, but only by a scant 50 points, or half a round. Stinnett put it bluntly, saying "it's pretty well going to come down to whoever goes the furthest on Sunday." Stinnett powered his small-block Mustang to a second-best 3.995.
Jason Hamstra took the first step toward the Xtreme Pro Mod championship this evening, using a 3.83 to vault himself to the top of the qualifying order.
If there's any guarantee in Indiana, it's that that the weather is never guaranteed. Temperatures have settled around 90 degrees today with a heat index nearing 100. With that came afternoon rain sprinkles and pop-up storms in the area...all while the su was still out.
While others are battling tooth and nail for the Radial Wars title, Oklahoma’s DeWayne Mills is here to simply play the spoiler. Mills clocked a 3.91 in Q1 to claim the top spot in qualifying, and with heat and sunshine on tap tomorrow, it may be enough to claim the top qualifying points.
Michael Biehle and Mike Rees lined up their similarly-prepared Pro Line Racing-powered NHRA Pro Mods in round one of Xtreme Pro Mod. Rees carded a 3.90 at 200 mph to slide in behind Hamstra in second. Biehle’s 4.02 put him eighth.
Rob Pearce leads the Dart Pro Stock standings by 255 points over Kevin Lawrence, and with just four cars in attendance, it will be a challenge for Lawrence to overcome it. Pearce ended qualifying round one behind Lawrence, 7.28 to a 7.19, allowing him to provisionally claim the second place qualifying points. With that, the title is all but sewed up.
Steve Summers (left, pictured with tuner Patrick Barnhill) trails Jason Hamstra by 180 points, or a little less than two rounds in the Xtreme Pro Mod standings this weekend, making him the most obvious challenger to Hamstra in his attempt to overtake Adam Flamholc for the crown. Summers’ 4.11 put him 11th in the order this evening.
A week after breaking more hearts in X275 at the Shakedown at the Summit with their own car, Rich and Nick Bruder are carrying on with that momentum with the Manny Buginga-owned, ProCharger-fed Fox-body here at Indy, qualifying number one last night with a 4.393 at 163.87 mph. The top of the Street Outlaw sheet is a packed one, with Buginga and Rob Goss both carding 4.41’s to closely trail Bruder.
Qualifying Round One Results
NA 10.5, LSX Real Street, Chevrolet Performance Stock, Nitrous Pro Street
LSX Drag Radial, Xtreme Street, Factory Super Cars, Radial Wars
Xtreme Pro Mod, Pro Stock, LSX Street King, Street Outlaw
