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The traditional season finale of heads-up drag racing, the Snowbirds Outlaw Nationals, kicks off this weekend at the Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida. As always, we’ll be in the house to bring you all the news, notes, results, and photos from this winter drag racing extravaganza in the Sunshine State! A special thanks to the team at Comp Cams, whose support makes our coverage here at Dragzine possible!
Mike Stavrinos debut the teams car here at the Outlaw drag Racing Championships in October after repairs from Coast Chassis Design and a combination swap to a 572 cubic inch twin turbo big Chevy from Progressive Racing Engines. A leaking head gasket ended their weekend but the team is back here and ready to rock. Boost comes from a pair of Garrett 94’s with tuning from Carlo Zaldivar. This is their second outing with this set up returning from a crash and fire here last year. From left to right, Dino Stavrinos, Cami, Mike Stavrinos and Paul.
Travis Harvey is here with a new Jerry Bickel 69 Camaro owned by Von Myles. The car is powered y a Sonny’s Racing 959 and Speedtech Nitrous. Sponsors include CK Motorsports, Von Myles, Hoosier, Sonny’s and M&M Transmissions. “I want to thank CK Motorsports and Von Myles for providing the resources for us to come out race and have fun doing it, if it wasn’t for him I couldn’t be out here doing this. – Travis “The Carolina Kid” Harvey.
Scott Brasket has his new car out for the second time this year. He tested at Norwalk in October and has made a converter change since then. This car was built in house by Brasket and features a big Chevy topped with a Littlefield blower and backed by a Quickdrive and Lenco three speed trans. He plans to test the car with the Chevy engine before switching to a Hemi which is still being built.
Rick Fleck ran the PDRA circuit the full year finishing fourth in Pro Boost points and is here for some testing and a little racing this weekend with his 41 Willy’s. The team has had little time for testing this year but has been in the 3.70’s and showing promise for improvement.
Jim Bersani has this new 1969 Chevelle Pro Mod based out of Syracuse, New York. The car is powered by a twin turbo Hemi with short block assembly by Mike Stawicki. A pair of Garrett 88's provide the boost with Big Stuff 3 engine management, an MSD Grid and AMS 2000 boost controller controlling the power management with Crew Chief Paul Francia manning the keyboard. The chassis was built by Vanishing Point Race Cars as a base roller with the team finishing it off in house and topped with an Andy McCoy body. This car replaces his 57 Chevy that was ruined in an accident at Budds Creek last year.
Blazer Dave Ridgely was out early in the test session running a 5.0 at 138 MPH in the Ultra Street Mud Truck.
Frank Cersosimo (left) and Raymond Commisso, who has a brand new car this weekend, left hard but struggled past 100 feet in todays test session before the rain dampened the afternoon. Hopefully the weather will pass and the staff can get things dried off for tonight's scheduled bracket race and heads up testing.
Jay Bell moved here about two years ago from Ohio and has run his Anvil Motorsports Mustang here bracket racing on a semi regular basis. The car features a big block Ford power plant pushing the car to 5/60 - 5.70 ET's. Plans fro 2016 include a bigger engine and moving up to Outlaw 632 with Troy Pirez consulting on the upgrades and tuning assistance for the class.
Josh Peel brought out his old ORSCA Limited Street Camaro which he has campaigned randomly in Outlaw Drag Radial since but has been put away since 2014 after losing a rod at SGMP. The 1992 Camaro is powered by a big Chevy with twin turbos and was built in house by Josh Peel at Mad Motorsports in Chipley, Florida.
Jay Bell moved here about two years ago from Ohio and has run his Anvil Motorsports Mustang here bracket racing on a semi regular basis. The car features a big block Ford power plant pushing the car to 5/60 - 5.70 ET's. Plans fro 2016 include a bigger engine and moving up to Outlaw 632 with Troy Pirez consulting on the upgrades and tuning assistance for the class.
Shawn Pevlor made the drive down from Cincinnati to compete in Ultra Street this weekend as as garner some end of year testing. He ran a 4.86 earlier this afternoon and backed it up with another .86 a short time ago showing he is ready for whatever may come in the class this weekend.
Jason Scruggs made a couple of runs today scoring a 3.74 at 191 MPH on his last run this evening. The weather is good today with a tail wind. According to Airdensityonline.com the DA was about 916 feet just about an hour ago.
Another racer running well is Jay Cox who put up a 3.76 at 200 MPH in the Bryant Industrial Crane and Rigging, Buck Racing powered Pro Nitrous Camaro.
Wild Bill Devine from Bullseye Turbo is here with his manual trans equipped Twin Turbo Mustang. He hasn’t quite made a full pass that we saw but is looking good to near half track so far.
Dave French put up a 4.59 at 152 MPH for a personal best ET for team Powermad Racing. He recently switched to a custom torque converter from Automatic Transmission Factory with this being the first event with the new piece.
Rick Fleck powered his way to a nice 3.81 at 192 MPH.
Open Outlaw Racer Aaron Rochon put up a 3.93 at 185 in the Rocycle Rocket. He has been quicker but it’s a good start for the weekend.
