Friday

Dewayne Mills switched back to the 481X combo and moved the turbos back from the front of the car to by the firewall coming in No Mercy 9. He stated a couple of reasons, the difficulty of working on the Hemi engine which doesn’t fit the car as well, and a bit less maintenance. “We ran it a year with the turbos up front and on a killer track is ok but in the summer races at NMCA we couldn’t get the car to run as hard as we want to with the extra nose weight. We feel it’s just a better race car set up this way so we made the switch back with Larry Jeffers doing all the work.” – Dewayne Mills

Kenjo Kelly is here with a new car this weekend featuring steel quarters and roof built for No Prep Kings but some controversy at an event and pulling chips from different bags has Kenjo no longer in that series and back at it in grudge racing. He brought the car here untested and reports two good runs so far and is looking for A to B hits and gathering data. The engine is a stage 4 481X fed by twin 102 Precisions backed by an M&M Transmission and converter and managed by Fuel Tech with Steve Petty assisting Kelly with tuning the new to him system. Jason Cantu is here helping as crew this weekend.

Vinny Larosa has his Plymouth Duster here for Outlaw 632 action with lots up updates from Tube Chassis Designs including a full suspension upgrade and ride height change to lower the car several inches. Voss Racing Engines is now on board with a new power plant which the team tested at Galot Motorsports Park prior to coming here to get a few laps on the new piece, which is a twin to Voss own engine and pulls within fifteen horsepower on the dyno. Larosa has been a 4.65 and 4.64 so far this weekend running .038 jets while dialing the car in. The plan was to put a little more in for the next session and it sure put the heat to it as he climbed the ring gear early in the run, getting on the bumper with all four wheels off the ground.

He pedaled the car but bounced it and wound up in a violent spin but avoiding any wall contact. He is fine, the car and engine maybe not after the incident as it was a long clean up. Well check back with Vinny and crew later but it’s definitely going to make the highlight reel. The team this weekend is Aaron Cashwell, Clyde Lovette, Scott Voss and Corey Voss. The car was campaigned in the 70’s as “The Feather Duster” in Dayton Production Altered and is the first recorded conversion to a Chevy engine in 1974 with a bored DZ 302 and four speed transmission with Vinny purchasing it in 1995 though it was no longer in that same configuration. Purchase isn’t really the right term as he traded his Grand National for it plus some cash.

East Islip, New York’s John Cipolla runs X275 with his 1989 Mustang built at BP Racing in Babylon, NY with a BES big Chevy backed by a Pro Torque converter and Rossler 2 speed TH 400 transmission. John managed a 4.53 at 156 last night and swapped the stator out after the session. This morning he sent the shocks to Menscer to get tuned up and will be looking for some 4.40’s in the next session. He has had this car about four years starting out in Ultra Street before making the switch to X275 two years ago.

Tim Kincaid is running Radial vs the World and has been here three times with the Corvette Pro Mod, errr RVW car. He just missed qualifying for the Sweet 16 here in march but did score the win in the second chance race netting a 5K payday. Kincaid has been racing since high school starting out in bracket racing. He first real race car was a back halved 1970 F100 running 6.60’s in the eighth mile with a big block, later switching to a 114 MM rear mounted turbo around 2010 and running down in the five teen range. This Corvette was built by David Munday Race Cars and is powered by a Brad 8X topped with Chuck Ford roots style blower. New to the car this weekend is a Liberty 5 speed transmission with a quick drive lock up converter. “We are learning the new transmission, it looks like it’s gonna be better just gotta get our ducks in a row” – Tim Kincaid

Ken Quartuccio had a luck break of sorts after dropping a valve in Q 2 of radial vs the World yesterday. It his just right causing minimal damage with the team just making the call for the third session and scoring a 3.816, matching his best performance with the new car.

John Keesey suffered some engine damage at the Ohio Valley Prize Fight disrupting his plans to attend the Yellow Bullet Nationals but made it here and finished assembling the car on site. KBX’s Justin McChensey does the tuning with the engine from the KBX team but the car was built by Keesey at his Airport Automotive shop. It’s fed by a Forced Inductions turbo and backed by an ATF Speed trans and converter. The car is the fastest hi port headed engine running 4.36 at a best ET last year in Memphis.

Keesey, like many of us, got started street racing and in the grudge world before graduating to heads up events about ten years ago with a big block Procharged 1969 Camaro in Outlaw Drag Radial with instigation and help from Frank Soldridge. Keesey purchased this car about nine years ago to run in Ultra Street and did well in the class. “I put it all together to run Ultra Street, the new beginner heads up class, an inexpensive class you can go out and have fun with, as we started going faster the rules held us back a little bit and I decided to move to X275 and let it eat and here we are.” John Keesey

Maypearl, Texas based Leroy “The Blood” Nabors is racing in Radial vs the World this week and has a non profit ministry using drag racing as a tool to get their foot in the door with hospitals and schools to give kids hope that are dealing with fatal illnesses. It’s a working farm and retreat in central Texas with two locations in Maypearl, and Purmela, raising assorted species of deer and antelope, some of which are endangered species, where families and others can come and relax, and talk to others who understand the illnesses and roller coaster of hospital visits, long term care and loss that a family may have. Nabors lost his own son Hunter to Cystic Fibrosis a year ago, a disease that hits close to home for me as I was diagnosed with CF at 17 years old and was fortunate enough to receive a double lung transplant in 2004. Hunter got his father involved in drag racing in 2014 and it wasn’t long before Leroy was racing in the NMRA. For more information you can visit www.ggtgdaily.com.

“I have less than twelve complete passes in the Corvette and we have been a 3.84 so far. We have a new Profiler box in the car and the self learning box. Scott Brasket is our crew chief, he maintains the car, the engine, basically runs our whole racing program on the Corvette. Last year we ran NMRA with a car purchased from Charles Hull in Street Outlaw, finishing third in points for the year with lots of help from KBX and Scott. We sold that back to Charles and bought the Corvette and also have a 2014 Camaro ran by Mike Janis and are looking at running NHRA Pro Mod next year. Our ministry’s goal is to give people the tools they need to be successful in life and also have a community service program. We work with children and families to give them the strength and endurance to get through the difficult times.”  – Leroy Nabors

Yet another Aussie invading Georgia this weekend is Jerrod Wood hailing from Victoria in this Garrett turbo equipped monster of a Jeep. He also improved his performance down to a 4.457 at 162 MPH, moving way up into the thick of things from twenty first position.

Patrick Clenney improved substantially in the X275 session interrupted by the rain from his earlier 19th position 4.55 to a 4.47. Shane FIsher is still top qualifier with a 4.392 at 172 MPH. Rain has ended our day of racing here and we resume at 10 AM.