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Saturday
Stevie Fast dropped the hammer on the Radial Vs The World field with a booming 3.546 pass during the fourth round of qualifying.
We spoke with Charlie White from Adam Flamholc’s crew to get updated on their progress this morning. The team had a long night after breaking a rod during qualifying on Friday, having to run back to the shop and assemble a new short block till 4:30 AM and is here on three hours sleep, firing the car about 9:15 this morning. They are qualified fifteenth with a 3.77 at 203 after a nice run in the final session today after a change to the schedule.
Bubba Stanton has been racing near his home and some in Dallas last year and this is his first time at Bradenton in three years. He changed the car up to run Pro Mod here, slowing things down with lower boost and at 2,450 pounds, a full 150 pounds heavier than he is used to running. He scored a 3.81 on his first full run with this set up yesterday and has some good data to work with today. From left to right, Jason Hutcheson, Bubba Stanton and his father Danny.
Tommy Youmans from McIntyre, Georgia owns this stunning 1970 GTO entered in Pro 275. The car debuted at SGMP’s No Mercy last year where Youmans has an unfortunate incident with the wall and was just completed with repairs and fired up last week. It features a 505 cubic inch Pontiac engine with Kauffman billet block and cast Warp 6 War Chief heads making 3.350 RWHP on the hub dyno at Fuel Tech. He is qualified so far with a 4.10 at 181 MPH with plenty of power left to go and is looking to break into the threes here this weekend. The car was built using replacement body panels from National Parts Depot and fiberglass from VFN with Youmans melding the fenders and hood into a one piece lift off assembly, Tom Dobson and Mod Rods in Macon, Georgia.
One of the more interesting cars here this weekend is this Chevy Nova driven by J.R. Lazic. We met J.R. Last year at SGMP and the team recently completed this car featuring a roots blown LS engine from JS Powersports with the chassis build done by Rob at Diversified Metal Works. It has a cast RHS block topped with billet Noonan heads backed by a Rossler transmission and Coan converter making 1,500 RWHP spinning the tires on JS Powersports dyno.
The build has been about a three year process in an effort to be a little different from the heard. The car has been converted to a triangulated 4 link, Fox body Mustang style rear suspension. They have not made a full pass yet while working the bugs out f the new combo but qualified so far with a 4.83 at 127 lifting at 3.8 seconds in the run and have a new pulley coming this morning via UPS to increase the boost. Teh crew from left to right is Darryl from JS Powersports, J.R. Lazic and his father Roy Lazic.
Steve Green has a brand new car prepped for N/T Racing by Cameron Johnson Race Cars out of Lakeland, Florida. Steve is based out of Opelika, Alabama with team Silverback Racing. The team has been grudge racing for about three years and decided to get serious and commission a new car. He runs a small block nitrous combo and is debuting the new build here this weekend.
We spoke with Eric Luzinski from Titan Motorsports to get up to speed on the teams Supra. He is the crew chief and does the tuning and set up on the car as well as running EZ Motorsports manufacturing clutches. He took over AFT Clutches about two years ago and has a large market int he import market and some European Pro Mod cars. This cars runs a four disc set up behind the billet 2JZ Titan block. Gary White put down another 4.27 in the final session and stays in second spot behind Rob Goss. From left to right, Adil, Gary and Eric.
The heads up field is set for all classes with Lizzi Musi on top of Pro Mod this weekend with a 3.62 at 206 MPH and David Monday rounding out the top ten cars with a 3.70 at 205. We are runnign a thirty two car field so it will be an all run class with plenty of room for “upsets” down the ladder as there is plenty of fast cars here that are just getting started on the 2020 season and working out new combinations.
As we mentioned earlier Steve Jackson ripped off a 3.54 at 231 in a side by side match with team mate Marcus Birt who scored a 3.587 at 205, I believe that makes the quickest side by side pass in drag radial history. Radial vs the World will also be an all run field.
Mark Woodruff got behind the wheel of his Corvette today after Craig Sullivan handled the driving on Friday. He sits in ninth with a 3.71 at 212 MPH. He will face off with George Williams out of Mastic, New York. He put up a 3.81 at 194.
Chris Perry is running his Camaro in LDR trim and testing for Lights Out. He has improved his program recently and dropped some weight before this race with some carbon body panels. His 4.11 1t 191 put him in the field at eighteenth and face off with Bryan Markiewicz who ran a personal best 3.61 at 207.
The Jewels have run the car around New York and Ohio for about three years in an Outlaw 10.5 series. The car has a conventional big block Chevy with twin Garret 88 MM turbos built by his brother at RLJ Racing with chassis built built by Randy at his shop, RJ Pro Fab.
Don Burton has his new car out this weekend and is doing well so far with a 4.14 at 182. He is working on going A to B with a soft 60', turing the power on around one hundred feet out and you can tell it's coming on strong. Burton will face Mark Micke in their first weekend on the 275 tire. We spoke with Mark last night. He said they are just learning the smaller tire right now and are pleased with the 3.91 at 200 they qualified with. They tried running an .80 last night and lost the tire near 100 feet out but are confidant with the Malibu that has been a staple OL 10.5 and Drag Radial racing since the 90's.
“I love racing in Florida this time of year, the fans are all excited, everybody has been cooped up for the winter, tired of all the holidays and ready to burn the score boards down…” Steve Jackson opened up to us after his record setting pace in the final session this afternoon. We caught up with Jackson during first round eliminations of Ultra Street after a racer spun out and knocked the 330′ blocks over. The NHRA Pro Mod champ told everyone he was coming down south to burn em down and he did and word is more is in store. “Tommorow is gonna be awesome, we are gonna have just as good air, Marcus Birt in my nitrous car is haling butt qualifying number two, Shadow is number one and I haven’t been the drag radial record holder in a long time and it feels good….the nitrous combination right now is, I think, for sure the most unexplored and easiest to run. We haven’t nearly seen the limit of what that nitrous combo can run.” he said. Good money is on the record being re-set again here this weekend and the KTR team is looking to chop some heads.
Plans for the team after this event will be Lights Out, then the World Door Slammer Nationals in Orlando with the NHRA car and NHRA Pro Mod and running The Shadow in some stand alone events like this and sprinkle them in for fun throughout the year. Billy Stocklin is on the key board and Robert Johnson and Jack Barbie crewing on the car with Drew McLure and Phil Shuler has come on board full time and will be splitting time between The Shadow and Bill Whitely’s J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod that Jackson is crew chief for. “It’s going to be a really exciting year, we have a lot of irons in the fire and the best part is I’ll be at a race track about forty weekends this year, it’s gonna be good nobody loves drag racing on the planet more than me.” – Steve Jackson, shown with Billy Stocklin at right.
The stands were packed today as we went into round one of eliminations.
Round One Results
Eric Gustafson scored low ET in round one of Pro Mod running a 3,673 at 194 on a single run in his PTP Tuned Procharger equipped Coast Packing sponsored Camaro.
Kevin Rivenbark earned his way to round two with low ET at 3.590 at 208 to get by Joe Rivera.
John McDonough from Panama City, Florida purchased the car from Terry Elam and has limited time on the car, basically debuting at the Orlando World Street Finals last year. He was qualified fourth and had a single in the round, letting it eat to the tune of 4.29 at 169.
