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Day three in progress here at Lights Out 8 though we are under a bit of a rain delay this morning shortly after finishing up round three of Outlaw 632. Stay tuned to Dragzine as we bring you the latest from the news from the track and in the pits.
The track set up a meeting for all media this morning at 9 AM to make sure only official media had special armbands and signed the a waiver going forward to clear up any confusion by staff and VIP folks in the secured areas due the sheet amount of credentialed media here at Lights Out 8.
The track staff has worked hard prepping and cleaning up assorted spills and crashes this week and it's not over yet. Some of the staff from left to right, Toby, Ralph, Kane Daley, Kurt Johnson from Total Venue Concepts, Jamie Luke and Keith Wilkerson. At left you can clearly see the rubber being put down by the Total Venue Concepts rotator.
Jordan Lazic, Mark Jakab and Roy Lazic (from left to right) made the trip from the west coast of Canada with the “Radial Flyer” 1968 Nova owned by Jay Siverson to compete in Pro 275. The car is powered by a 648 cubic inch Big Duke style Chevy backed by a Rossler transmission and topped with two stages of NOS with a Holley EFI system. They had a twisted route to get here via Arizona to meet up with some other people and some testing time in Memphis, overall a seventy-one hour drive. They definitely win the continental driving long distance award to get here. Lazic is sitting sixteenth in class with a 4.75 at 153 MPH. The crew also changed the injector position in the intake here on site with the assistance of Mac Fab to weld new bungs in the intake at a lower position resulting in the improved performance.
The top two qualifiers in class are Ken Quartuccio, shown at left, and Dominic Augustine, which is the same pair that were in the finals recently at Bradenton's US Street Nationals in January with Augustine earning the win there. Quartuccio is a recent convert to radial tires and the first car to run in the 4.20 zone with his 4.295. Neither racer improved this morning.
A fan favorite is this 1937 Chevy owned by Mike Oldham. The car enjoys full street legal status with tail lights and turn signals and sees actual street duty quite often. He is qualified with a 4.88 at 140 MPH so far in eighteenth position.
Johnny Pluchino is the highest qualified big tire car scoring a 4.371 at 160 to land third in this morning’s third session for the class.
Shannon Poole’s new car is our favorite here this weekend and a real head turner with the arrest me red paint job. He sits fifteenth with a 4.82 at 150 and is still working out the new ride.
Steve Jackson and the Killin Time crew put the Shadow 2.0 in the record books scoring a 3.737 in last nights Radial vs the World qualifying. “This race is crazy, it’s turned into a home run derby and I love it, that’s my kind of racing. I don’t think where the record is now it will stay, and I think you’re gonna have to go faster than that to win and I hope we have a little left in the tank. The car is out of Rick Jones Quarter Max built Camaro with the BAE Hemi drive train out of the Mustang, it fought us for a couple of days we got it iron out and now it’s hauling ass. We have a good repeatable hot rod that does what I tell it to. The 60′ on the run was a .978, the best that we’ve been. I don’t know if anyone else has faster, I don’t pay attention just work on other folks catching up.” – Steve Jackson.
We saw via Facebook Kenny Hubbard was looking for an adjustable ring compresser and ropped by the pits to check op on the Texas racer to find he was just fine and asking for his pit neighbor Thomas Patterson who hurt a piston in his earlier qualifying run in Outlaw 632. They were had finished the internal repairs and were wrapping up torquing down the heads.
Brad Fournier is running Ultimate Street with his 1986 Camaro based out of Orlando, Florida. He is on the new MT SS 275 and scored a 1.12 60' yesterday in qualifying, the best to date we have heard about on the new tire. He is qualified nineteenth so far and looking to get into the fours this weekend. The car sits on TRZ suspension all around with a front cross member from Atillio DeRosa's AA Perforamnce Power comes from a Nelson Competition small block Chevy with Wilson Nitrous plate system.
Jason Spinks in running X275 based out of Milton, Florida with his 1972 Chevelle he purchased back in 1994 and started racing it around 1997. Since then it has progressed to what he has now, inspired by attending a past race here where he fell in love with X275. He took about 5 years off racing the car on the build with Ricky Shelby Fabrication handling the cage upgrades and the other fabrication. Jason does his own engines, transmission and rear ends and is an automotive mechanic by trade working at Escambia Car Care. The Spinks Racing engine is topped with nitrous from Induction Solutions.
David Adkins put his ls powered 63 Impala in the threes last night with a 3.97 after running several four oh’s this week. The crew from left to right, David Adkins, T.J Grimes, Kyle Homik and Jake Fox.
Final Qualifying Results
The qualifying sheets below are the latest available to us as the tower had a computer go down a few hours before we were finished. The classes that include ladders are up to date, Radial vs the World, X275, Outlaw 632 and Outlaw Drag Radial. Extreme Leaf Spring and Nitrous X are not the final qualifying sheets. We will have those tomorrow when they are available.
Nitrous X Q2, X275 Q3/final.
Outlaw 632 Q3 and Ladder, Ultimate Street.
Leaf Spring, Outlaw Drag Radial final Q and Ladder.
Ayres and Pearson were the first pair down in PTC Radial vs the World round one eliminations with Pearson bursting flames under the car passing 150 feet or so and pulling over as Ayres went down with the best run of his weekend scoring a 4.20 at 174 MPH.
Keith Haney was paired with Kye Kelly with Kelly hiking the tires early in the race and doing his best to ride it out without lifting too much and slowing down significantly. Haney was able to ear the round in the exciting match with a 3.92 at 193.
Alan Pittman went on to round two after his match with Billy Banaka. Both cars left hard but Banaka struck the tires and got out of shape quickly, then drifted across the track and doing a great job of wall avoidance and gettign the car stopped.
Steve Jackson faced off with number 32 Carl Brunette in the ECO Tech powered ride of Carl Brunet. Brunet put up a valiant fight with his own 4.21 but fell to the Shadow 2.0 running a 3.82 at 198 MPH.
DeWayne Mills met up with Marty Stinnett in RVW and taking a hard loss after striking the tires very early in the run. The crowd was quite displeased at the upset though Stinnett scored a nice 3 second pass on the run.
Jeff Sitton also took an upset loss after he also could not hold on to the track. Mark Micke who had struggled in qualifying with wheel stands and managed an A to B run first round.
