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James Goad has been making progress with his new car “Deez Nuts” as his team gets more hits at the track. Goad’s tuner Travis Quillen told us they are just trying to get data on the new setup and have seen a lot of progress so far. Last night Goad drove the Camaro to an early shutoff pass with a 1.10 60 foot on an extremely soft tune. Quillen stated they don’t have any extra pistons or head gaskets so they are just playing it safe with the tune-ups as they keep working with the car.
Kenny Hubbard and his team were working on an early morning gear swap for his nitrous-fed Nova. Hubbard is double entered in both the Outlaw 632 and X275 classes this weekend, as well as tuning on several other cars. He has been one of the few cars to make it down the track the entire week on a regular basis.
Lamar Swindoll Jr. was thrashing on his ProCharged Camaro this morning before racing began. The car pushed a head gasket after a few head bolts became worked free. He overnighted a new set of gaskets and is working on getting the car ready for qualifying today. Overall he has been pleased with the cars performance and expects to move up the qualifying ladder today when racing begins.
Fort Wayne, Indiana based Adam Hodson is running the DXP 235 class with his 1973 Camaro and suffered an engine failure in qualifying breaking the number one connecting rod and ventilating the oil pan. Luckily for the team a spare engine was available back home in Bowling Green and phone class were made to arrange delivery here to south Georgia. Adam has owned the car for nearly twenty years campaigned the last four years as a SBE LS turbo combo at Dragweek running a best of 5.50/8.60 tipping the scales at 3740 pounds and backed by a TH 400 transmission. This weekend it's being fed by a class legal Bullseye S475 turbo. The group has three cars here this week and plenty of crew to assist. “Thanks to Colton and Samatha Coffee for holding us down in the RV and cooking for the crew, we have a good group of guys here helping out, couldn't do this without all the help, I have to thank Lonnie for the spare engine and loaner turbo to race this weekend.” Adam Hodson From left to right in the middle are Kenny Laflower, Adam Hodson and Travis Martin the drivers of the three cars the team brought.
Nick Yarber took the year off in 2017 and is back for 2018 running Limited Drag Radial with a fresh engine by Robert Hughes at Yarber Performance. He is qualified with a 4.29 at 182 with his first full pass this weekend and tuned by Ziff Hudson.
Phil Swales has a new engine recently in the Dirty Bird from HRE topped with a pair of Pro Systems carbs and a single Induction Sulutions fogger. This is the first race with a new trans and converter combo, a two speed 400 trans and Pro Torque converter. He qualified with a 4.74 yesterday. “I have to thank Larry Ensslin for coming over yesterday and going through and re setting my 4 link and Brian Keep and Ken Quartuccio for helping me with the tune up this morning. My son Patrick is the crew chief and his friend Jonathon Howell is also here helping out. I’m hoping to improve on my .74 in the next round.” – Phil Swales.
Manny Buginga faced some issues yesterday and was in the process of putting a spare head on the driver side of the engine this morning. He is currently sitting outside the qualified Radial vs the World class with a 5.77.
Rich Bruder ran well last night with a 4.42 but always looking for more. They were making changes to the Marty Chance billet bolt together converter this morning which is backed by a Proformance transmission.
Terry Parks was the last car down the track last night before things were shut down due to excessive fog. Parks hails from Princeton, West Virginia with his 1972 SS Nova. The car was run for several years on nitrous before switching to Procharger in 2017. Some changes were made in the offseason to the gearing, trans and converter. The Nova is powered by a TKM big Chevy. Parks has three hits on the car since getting here this week running a best of 4.33 last night. His son Dustin is also racing here this weekend in X275 and faced some electrical issues at first and backfired the scoop off the car but managed a 4.68, good for 30th in class so far.
Dan Moore has his Nitrous Outlet sponsored GTO entered in Ultra Street with some internal upgrades to the engine by Ultimate Maching in Wilmington and a new carburetor from DeVane Carburators. Moore is from Delaware and runs at Cecil County on a regular basis. So far he’s run a 5.13 at 132 with a personal best 1.13 60′. The car was built by Moore Quality Fabrication and features assorted lightweight components from Paul Demer at JCR Chassisworks.
Martin Connelley is driving for Eddie McCarty in the car built by Tin Soldier Race Cars about five years ago which is tuned by Connelley and Eric Mitchel. They run local around Kentucky and Ohio on the 235 radial with an 8.2 deck SBF built by BES and fitted with a Robert Lane nitrous fogger system weighing in a 3050 pounds. Eddie and Martin send a big shoutout to Maggie and all the family and friends watching back home in Sayersville.
Ron Rhodes has been fight an issues with the car driving left since last year and moved towards the center on one pass so finally decided to get under the car and look at the chassis. A trip to the local home supply store was in order for some plywood, levels and measuring devices to plot out the suspension finding an issue with the rear end not being square in the car. Being a leaf spring car the fix was more complicated requiring some fabrication and welding but the team got it done scoring a record breaking 4.38 with a nice 1.06 60′. Ron runs Induction Solutions, Devane Carburetors, Ultra Carbon body panels, Micky Thompson tires Optic Armor windows, Calvert and TRZ Suspension components, RPM Transmissions, PTC converters, Santhuff shocks, Ross pistons and VP Racing fuels.
The Laughlin’s purchased their RVW Corvette from Marty Robinson four months ago which had been campaigned previously by Jason Michalak. They tested the car in Denton at Northstar Dragway, making two runs to the gear change before loading up for the day. The car sat in the trailer until the team got here with Frankie Taylor assisting on tuning the car. Alex has been in dragsters and other big tire door cars including campaigning in NHRA Pro Stock for several years with this being his first event driving a radial tire car. “It’s really going about as well as I can ask for. We have Frankie Taylor, “The Madman” tuning , so I’m shifting this car myself, it’s got three speed in it. It doesn’t drive like any of the other cars I’ve been in, it doesn’t feel fast, it’s so smooth, the car doesn’t sashay like the big tire cars do, it’s like nothing I have experienced before. This car just move directly forward, the front end doesn’t come up like I’m used to. It sixty-foots slow but then a second and a half in the runs it’s pulling almost 4g’s and I’m stuck to the back of the seat and I’m having the time of my life,” said Laughlin. Before qualifying Alex had not even made a a full pass in the car and is qualified with a 3.86 at 202 mph in ninth position.
Daniel Pharris is running three classes this weekend, driving the C7 Vette for Andrew Aleppa in Radial vs the World and his own car in two classes, Limited Drag Radial and Pro 275, using the event as a test session to prepare for the 2018 NMCA season in Street Outlaw. He has a new engine from Bennett Racing with Garrett Turbos coming on for the year as a sponsor. His first time racing the car after purchasing it from John Kolivas resulted in an NMCA win at Indy last year. The car is showing improvements already and is tuned by Kolivas and the KBX team. “We qualified with a 4.38 in LDR and in Pro 275 with a 4.36 but are in NMCA legal trim and about four hundred pounds over weight. If we can stay consistent with some 4.30’s we should go some rounds in that deal.” Companies involved with Pharris’ program include Bennett Racing, KBX, Pressurized Solutions, Garrett Turbos, Pro Torque, M&M Transmissions, Mickey Thompson and FuelTech.
Outlaw 10.5 racer Steven Gorman has had a successful weekend so far, scoring a 3.94 at 189 mph running the same boost as he has on the 10.5 tires. Gorman is still learning the radial and suspension to get the car off the line, scoring a 1.03 and 1.04 60′ so far. Steve is tuning the car himself after consulting with the crew along with Mark Menscer providing his expertise with shock settings and spring rates and some phone chats and texts with Keith from Skinny Kid. “We had to make complete changes to the car from 10.5 trim to radials. We are making baby steps and now that we got the car down the track and we see what it takes to keep the front end down we’ll start pouring a little power to it and see if we can go one round at a time … it’s very exciting.”
The DXP 235 class has a lot of action with Adam Hodson losing two engines in spectacular fashion and several wheelstands. Number two qualifier Martin Connelley set a prime example here in the final qualifying session. He was bumped by Jason Anderson who took over top position with a 5.17 at 135 MPH.
The Killin Time Racing team of Jeff Sitton and Steve Jackson led PTC Radial vs the World qualifying with identical ET’s at 3.787 at 198 mph, with Sitton edging out Jackson by virtue of a better mile per hour. The class fought tough track conditions and still managed to get the top half of the field in the three second zone, with Canadain racer Enzo Pecchini at 16 with a 3.98 at 182 in his Procharged Mustang. Shane Novak is doing well in his first time on radials entering the field at 17th before being bumped down to 23rd with a 4.12.
KBX/Precision X275 had 48 cars attempt to qualify, with Ron Rhodes holding on to number one with his 4.38 and Richard Lowery holding the bump spot with a 4.68, making for a nicely bunched field. Coatesville, PA-based John Keesey managed to bump Rich Bruder to third by one thousandth with a 4.424 at 164.
Don Lamana scored a new personal best in Pro 275 with a 4.02, landing third in class for the Pro Fab Performance Southern Speed Racing tuned machine. Josh Klugger is top qualifier in Pro 275 with a 3.98 and backed it up with a 3.99 this afternoon. “We set the record down in Orlando with a 3.97 and ran a .98 here, there is a lot left in the car but now it's time to race smart and see if we can win another race” - Josh Klugger
Radial vs the World round one was a tricky affair with the track playing a large role in winners and losers and many cars not making the trip to the finish line cleanly. Keith Haney and Jeff Shawver were the first pair out with Haney reaching for the sky in the Enigma and Shawver having issues on the line building boost. The Enigma would advance to round two.
Jamie Hancock made a clean 4.34 pass at 162 for his effort earning a win over Jason Collins foul start. Next up was Paolo Guist who scored a 3.84 at 194 to take out Greg Powrie.
Daniel Pharris earned his way past David Wolfe setting low ET with a 3.79 at 214 on the tricky surface while Wolfe laid down his best effort of the week 4.03 at 196. Pharris and Wolfe pictured left. Shane Novak and crew figured his car out scoring a 4.01 at 192 over Steven Gorman's 4.09.
