Thursday

No Mercy IX here at South Georgia Motorsports Park starts with Radial vs the World qualifying with Mark Micke running early in the session. He put up a 3.85 at 211 landing second in class and earning top mph for the session. Jeff Naiser took over top qualifier with a 3.84 at just 182 mph. It’s a hot one here in Cecil, GA as the temperature was hovering about 84 degrees with a feels-like temp of 97. Stay hydrated out there folks! Stay tuned to Dragzine for the latest news from the pits and beyond and don’t miss SpeedVideo’s live feed of the on track action.

The Fiscus Klugger Racing Mustang is now in new hands with Peter Volpe based out of Linfield, Mass. Peter has been building a car with Karl’s East Coast Speed in Rhode Island for a few years and when the FKR machine he decided to take a look and talk to the team and decoded to take the plunge and purchase the well known and capable car. He has done a few laps testing before the event but they are basically using No Mercy IX as a test session for his race debut in Pro 275. The car is unchanged from the purchase condition still retaining the Pro Line engine and Garrett turbos with Josh and the crew on hand to get the new owner dialed in. Matt Hamel and Kevin Volk from Karl’s East Coast Speed as here crewing with Peter as well and getting up to speed on his new ride.

The Aussies are here, the Aussies are here? We have multiple Austrailian based teams here but only one with a full on right hand drive car in this 1979 VB Holden Commodore with main sponsorship for the ride here sponsored by Will Cauchi owner of Hunter Kitchen King. The car is owned by Jeremy Martin from Newcastle, Australia and powered by a PLR 481X and fed by twin Precision 98 MM turbos with tuning by Josh Ledford. This is the first event the car has been on a radial tire putting up a 4.23 at 187 in his first qualifying attempt today. Jeremy purchased the car for one thousand dollars nearly fifteen years ago and started hot rodding it up soon after buying it. It’s had a turbo charged 308 Holden engine making 1,000 horsepower but quickly tired of head gasket maintenance as the Holden engine only has four head bolts per cylinder.

He made low nine second runs at 150 MPH with the combo before stepping up to a 540 CI big Chevy with a 114 single turbo. Jeremy worked that combo to some 6.90’s at 200 MPH for a while before getting hooked up with Proline and scoring the 481X that has powered the car for nearly four years. He was the first four door car to run a five second pass, the first steel body car and first and only Commodore to accomplish the feat in Australia, or anywhere. The car was built by Craig Burns at SCF Race Cars and as done all the upgrades to the chassis, which was front halved during the swap to the Proline mill. Jeremy was the winner of the fifty thousand dollar to win Grudge Kings event a few months back, the first big payout event of it’s kind in Australia. He is a mobile mechanic working on coal mining equipment in the Hunter Valley and has his father and all his mates here in the states to have fun and a bit of a go here at SGMP. Pictured from left to right: Jason Crofts, Jeremy’s father Charlie Martin, Bodie Duncan, Will Cauchi, Jeremy Martin, Jason Martin, Isaac Martin and Aaron Stoddart.

The Quartuccio crew is basically a big family and has stepped up to OL 10.5 and Radial vs the World with the teams new car built by Skinny Kid as envisioned by Jamie Miller. The team’s performance has been outstanding so far with four wins in six races and two semi final round appearances. Right now he sits fourth in class with a 3.93 at 201 MPH. The car has an M&M Transmission and converter feeding the power back to a Carson Innovation’s third member. Mark Menscer specked shocks. The body was molded by Skinny Kid and laid by Synergy Composites. Ken and Denise’s’ daughter Kaitlin does the between round maintenance on the engine.

They planned to have their Camaro here but it was not quite finished from the repairs after several wheel stands at the Sweet 16 here in March. Plans for the Camaro will have Kaitlin driving it in OL 632 with Ken behind the wheel for Limited Drag Radial. Ken had to pedal the car out of a wheel stand this session running a little soft tune up but not expecting the track to have much bite with the higher surface temps here in Georgia. The car is in OL 10.5 trim running 88 MM turbos this weekend, they want to get a good handle on everything with the new car before making turbo changes to keep up with the Jonses running bigger 98, or 106 MM units. “I have to thank my family for all the support and all the guys on the crew for going above and beyond to keep everything together. Running a car like this is a step up from what we did in Outlaw 632 and they haven’t missed a beat.” Ken Quartuccio.

Rob Goss finished up his NMCA Street Outlaw season last weekend scoring third place in points on the year. He stopped off at BES to swap in the new bullet suffering a little piston damage to the NMCA specked engine in Indy. The new one is a cast head combo and gets a small weight brake here in X275. They set the car up for an easy run in X275 qualifying running a 4.62 in the first session today. Wade Hopkins from Southern Speed Solutions has been on board tuning since the NMCA Norwalk event with great results and they have enough data now to be confident in tuning changes.

Ron Rhodes laid down an easy 4.49 for his first attempt today in X275.

Pro Fab Perfomance Plus’ Don Lamana had the timer malfunction on his first attempt as the first pair down track in RVS qualifying. He was allowed to come back and make a pass later but moved to the left and struck the tires looking for a 4.10 on the run.

Columbia, South Carolina’s Jeff Miller and crew got home at 8:30 AM from The Shakedown, got the car out of the trailer, stripped the wiring, washed it, found a front end near North Carolina brought that home and cut it in half before going to sleep. Jeff Miller and his son Patrick rewired the car, made new windows and generally worked their ass off to prepare the car for No Mercy. The engine is a 521 Hemi topped with a screw and managed by Holley EFI.

Ultimate Street racer Bill Gregan hails from Bradenton, Florida and is fresh of his win at Bradenton Motorsports Park’s Heads Up Madness. Bill recently installed a new rear end from TRZ Motorsports. Bill runs a Nitrous Outlet Stinger plate on his small block Ford filled with Diamond Pistons. “I have to thank Troy Jr at Innovative Racecraft, Todd Brash at TRZ, Joe Irwin and the guys at Fast Forward Race Engines and my son Tyler.” – Bill Gregan

Memphis based Mark Campbell runs this clean Mustang in LDR powered by a small block Ford and single Precision 94 MM turbo. It’s a brand new engine combo for the car with just three full runs on it before getting here this week. Mark is a sales rep for Comp Cams and built the entire car himself and tunes it via the F.A.S.T. XFI 2.0. The transmission is all TCI products. The previous engine combo was a nitrous set up running in the low fives. A timing malfunction with the track caused him to not get a timeslip but his data shows about a 4.90, so it’s so far so good for the new bullet.

He has had this car about seven years, messing around with it as a street deal running in the eleven second zone for a while before getting bit by the go fast bug. He has been at Comp Cams for about four years after moving south from Canada and had a full service shop doing engine work and car builds before that. Campbell started out driving Super Comp dragster at 16 and has piloted everything from street cars to Pro Mods and a TAFC owned by Harold Farvette. He was qualified earlier with a 5.16 sitting twelfth in LDR.

Anthony Evans got some serious air for the first outstanding wheel stand of the week. He was climbing the ring gear hard going past the tree before hitting the chute mount and cocking towards the center on one wheel before coming down on the center line. He was able to keep it off any walls but may have suffered some damage from the re-entry in the shower of sparks.

Marty Stinnett shot right up to third in RVW with a 3.791 at 202 in the final session under the lights.

NMCA racer Andy Essary heats the hides in his 2002 Pontiac. He managed a 4.75 at 162 to land fifteenth in Limited Drag Radial.

A 3.78 at 196 for Jamie Hancock put him number two in RVW, he was paired next to Don Lamana who scored a 4.06 at 201, a personal best MPH landing him twentieth in RVW but that is just a test session for his Pro 275 efforts where he is qualified number one with a 4.20. Don installed the new Precision XPR 94 MM turbos before this race thanks to Proline and Precision Turbo. So far so good with the 201 MPH and an easy 1.12 60′.

Qualifying Sheets

Mike Buttafuda runs X274 with this 1979 Camaro out of Spring, Texas with a TRE 582 under the hood. He was qualified eleventh at 4.496 but improved to a 4.486, not quite enough to jump in front of his engine builder Taylor Lastor’s earlier 4.358.