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It’s the one race that heads-up drag racing fans have been waiting for all winter long, as the fabled “The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia” returns to the South Georgia Motorsports Park for what’s shaping up to be another epic barn burner. Competitors and fans from all corners have descended upon the Peach State for what is annually one of the biggest small-tire doorslammer races in the world. From the moment the gates open until all the winners have been crowned, Dragzine will be on the property bringing you the best in editorial and photo coverage, so bookmark us and stay tuned!
A special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels for their support of our year-long same day race coverage.
Ron Rhodes ran a 4.681 yesterday making him the first small block nitrous X275 car in the 4.60's. He runs a 23 degree small block Chevy with Induction Solutions nitrous system. PTC Converters, Santhuff shocks and TRZ Motorsports are on board. The team hails from Delaware with a 68 Camaro with Don Barnett, Jeff Kinsler and son Ronny. Rhodes will be racing Ultimate Converter Concepts/Bennett Racing Engines X275 and Proformance transmission/Capslock Oil Leafspring. His first run today was a 4.69.
Steve Morris has the big wagon here this weekend with his own modified F3R 139 Procharger with a Pro Volute and 5 inch piping to the inter cooler and a new Neal Chance converter.
Will Stevenson ran his last event with a borrowed F3R135, he has his F3R 139 back from Steve Morris for this race and should be improving on the 4.40 ran at the US Street Nationals. Sponsors include Steve Morris Racing Engines, KSR Performance and Dan Neumann Race Cars for his Outlaw Drag Radial Camaro. Class sponsors are NOS, Monte Smith and Holley.
Kenny Hubbard and Wayne Long are here from the lone star state to do battle in PTC Radial vs the World with the record setting supercharged Camaro. They broke a camshaft yesterday and had to swap out engines. There was a mishap yesterday with the push bar and had to fix the bumper this morning, they are going to paint it later after the primer dries. Car owner Wayne Long is also here with his new Chevy II to run X275, pics and info on that will be coming later today.
The Kevin Mullens ran a 4.46 @ 177 with his new car in Radial vs the World trim.
The El General Racing Corvette got down this afternoon with a 4.34 @ 183 making the team very happy about the run.
Don Lamana has a new car and this event makes the second outing for the Pro Fab Performance Plus X275 Mustang. He got a nice 5.07 on this pass, the best so far on his first hit today.
The track temp is getting the best of quite a few racers this afternoon. We will be doing a round of qualifying today for all the heads up classes due to the inclement weather predicted to come this way. The session is scheduled to begin about 6 PM today. Motormaniatv.com will have the life stream up for today's session. Also check out Duckxxx.com as well which will have the feed embedded on the front page.
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Jason Enos burnt a head gasket testing yesterday after running a 4.32 @ 183 on his first full run on a radial tire. They had it back together last but are having some issues today. Hopefully they will get it straightned out soon.
Ruben T hasn't made a full good run today, after his last run the Pro Lite Batteries team swapped the trans and rear gear for qualifying this evening.
LSX drag radial racer Mike Meeks ran one out the back today to the tune of 7.83 @ 175 making him the fastest 5th gen Camaro.
TCI's own Jeff Reed ran a 4.79 @ 151 with his single turbocharged Mustang, a nice hit for him so far.
Eric Kenward hooked up and managed a 5.17 @ 138 driving the Mustang in Billet Atomizers/ Media 1 Ultimate Street.
Keith Berry's first shakedown pass since the crash last year was a nice and straight 4.70 @ 168 MPH.
Mike Schill from El Dorado, Kansas put his 2004 Cobra on the bumber coming down hard earlier during testing. He sits 24th in Mac Fab Outlaw 275 with a 5.03 @ 145.
Sam Vincent is running Outlaw 275 this weekend and this is the result of his first ever pass on a radial tire. A wild ride for sure, hopefully the damage is repairable.
ROUND 1 QUALIFYING RESULTS
Terry Elan sits on top of X275 after one round with a 4.64 @153 MPH in the Panhandle Performance sponsored 03 Cobra.
Taylor Lastor has his new ride running well after qualifying third in X275 with a 4.687 @154.95.
Kyle Huttel came out hard with his Fulton powered 2002 Camaro running a 4.25 @ 168 in PTC Radial vs the World. The .25 is on a track record pace if he backs it up, which I have no doubt will happen. The only question is is he can reset the radial tire record lower than his previous 4.21 from Holly Springs.
Mac Fab Outlaw 275 had 33 cars attempt to qualify today in the early session. Phil Hines leads so far with a very nice 4.46 @ 168, just ahead of former class winner Marty Stinnett.
Dan Saitz got here just in time to make Outlaw 275 qualifying. After pulling right to the lanes from tech, he managed a 4.87 @ 149.07 off the trailer to land 17th in the field.
Brian McGee runs this Fulton nitrous big block in Outlaw Drag Radial out of Pelion, South Carolina. His 4.426 @ 170 has him number one qualifier after today's session.
Francis Johnson was another racer on the road and trying to get here for today's session. He did and ran a personal best 4.49 @ 161 putting his Samakow Racing Engines Firebird fourth in Outlaw Radial.
David DeMarco is well ahead of the Carcraft Outlaw 10.5 class with a 4.34 @ 183 in his Victory Racecraft tNMCA legal twin turbo Buick. he is sporting new graphics this weekend in his first race of 2013. DeMarco is looking to hurt some feelings this year in NMCA, and he is doing pretty good so far here facing off with various Outlaw style cars.
Chris Lancaster is back this year for Billet Atomizer Ultimate Street with his beautiful single turbo mod motor powered 66 Mustang. He is nearly a tenth ahead of the class with a 5.12 @ 140 with nitrous racer Jody Voyles second so far.
Bryan Marrow's 4.62 @ 159 has him leading Capslock Oil Leaf Spring after one session. The Ft. Lauderdale, Florida racer has caused some controversy in the past and is a strong runner in the class.
Ron Rhodes hurt his little 23 degree small block Chevy after being the first to run 4.6x yesterday while testing. The team had a lot of work to get it back together after replacing a piston but did not run well in his X275 qualifying attempt. leaf Spring was a different story however and he sits fourth with a 4.711 @ 149 MPH.
