Mike Murillo has a good history here at SCSN, but it doesn’t come without hard work, He and crewmember Johnny Ray were in the pits this morning swapping converters to get ready for today’s first of five qualifying shots over the next three days.

Also on the converter-swapping train this morning was the El General team, with the car driven by Eric Dillard and tuned by Steve Petty. They ran an unbelievable 5.75 last night in the test session – and our spy sources say 5.60’s may be possible this weekend. 5.60’s!

Mike Walterson (left) has this beautiful ’69 Nova ready to compete in the Outlaw 10.5 class with a true backhalf/stock front suspension setup. The car relies on a 762-cube Fulton engine with four stages of nitrous and is mostly homebuilt. He plans on taking baby steps in the qualifying sessions as he’s working with a number of new components. The highlight of his weekend so far? Driving through a hellish snowstorm in Montana during his 1,000 mile ride from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Also making the trip from Calgary is the Xtreme Drag Radial entry of Derek Przeginiak. Derek’s ride has a 434 small-block Ford pumped up by a set of Alamo Turbocharger’s finest modified Garrett GTX 88mm snails. A Hutch Powerglide transmission is also on board. His personal best is a 6.96 at 211 MPH, but with the great conditions in the forecast along with a couple of changes made to the car, the PSCA/NMCA West competitor is looking for 6.70’s this weekend.

The tech line has been full and steady all morning – the facility is packed, with more cars rolling in by the minute.

We caught up with Troy Coughlin’s crew chief Bryan Metzenheim this morning to chat about the combination in Troy’s Corvette. The turbocharged Outlaw Pro Mod made a couple of hits yesterday, and Metz spent plenty of time looking through the data and pondering the changes to make. Since the team is allowed to use a pair of 98mm turbochargers, figuring out the fuel system is key. Metz showed us his logbook, but we’d have to kill you if we showed you those pictures. The Steve Petty-tuned machine is always in the mix; we’d expect nothing less this weekend.

Brant Campbell is here from Texas with his sweet split-bumper Camaro – we looked for him in the pits but couldn’t find him. We’ll try to catch up with him later.

We’ll have more updates shortly, but we just had to share this one immediately. Tonight, in the Pro Mod Challenge, Eric Dillard, driving the El General car, absolutely wrecked the field with an incredible 5.706 at 260.61 MPH – tying the quickest pass in Pro Mod history (Jose Gonzalez, driving the same car) down to the thousandth of a second. The .60’s are just around the corner.

How about that Billy Glidden? He’s been running in NMCA Pro Street all year, but strapped the 10.5’s on the Mickey Thompson-sponsored machine for this race. He proceeded to rip off a stout 6.403 at only 195.98 MPH to top the ladder after the first round of qualifying.

Just moments after this photo was taken, legendary West Coast 10.5 racer Doug Sikora went to #3 on the Outlaw 10.5 ladder with an easy 6.55 hit. For those of you who don’t know, just two weeks ago Doug had a heart attack, but was cleared by his doctor to hop back in the seat for this weekend. The car has been much quicker in the past, but Doug wanted to take an easy pass during today’s session.

Mark Luton (left) owns one of the quickest Modular-powered machines on the planet. He’s currently 13th with a 7.11 shutoff pass in Outlaw 10.5. 

Doug Paddock purchased Dwayne James’ old NMRA Outlaw 10.5 machine and prepped it for use in PSCA and SCSN competition. Paddock is still sneaking up on the combination and sits right behind Luton with a soft 7.39 at 181 MPH.

John Stanley made the trek all the way out from Maryland to race here this weekend, The longtime racer runs a 521-cube Hemi in his ’68 Camaro and ran an outstanding 5.79 at only 204 MPH in the Pro Mod Showdown – he’s got much more in the tank for this weekend and will definitely be a player come Sunday.

Adam Flamholc, injured in a horrific crash in St. Louis several weeks ago, recently purchased Dan Nickelson’s record-holding Dodge Viper and, while still on the mend, is back on the horse this weekend, blasting to a 5.89 in the first session in Outlaw Pro Mod.

John Urist is here competing in the XDR/TT5 class with his NMRA Street Outlaw machine. Despite giving up a lot of turbo, a lot of engine, and a lot of tire to the rest o the competition, Urist carded a 7.26 tonight in the qualifying round. His car is “as it sits” in NMRA competition and he’s using this weekend as a test session. He’s always a player, though, even though he’s off the pace at the moment.

Steven Fereday’s ’95 Firehawk is one of the quickest LSX cars on the planet – he went a 6.83 tonight to sit second in XDR.

Mike Keenan wrapped up an outstanding first day of qualifying. The ’99 Camaro crossed the stripe with a 6.77 at a whopping 222 MPH in XDR/TT5 to nail down the top spot. Only one other competitor, Roger Holder, is even close to that MPH – and the next closest competitor, Fereday, is 10 MPH back.

Eric Gustafson has Jason Lee, Patrick Barnhill, and Racecraft’s Matt Mungall here this weekend working as crew on his beautiful ’89 Mustang, Gustafson cranked off an outstanding 4.73 (eighth-mile) to take the top spot in Wild Street.

We absolutely LOVE Darce Laws’ sweet ’65 Olds 442. The car has a 400-inch small-block Chevrolet engine between the framerails pumped up by an 88mm turbocharger. The Casper, Wyoming resident usually runs in the 5000-foot air in Colorado and is working on a tuneup for the improved conditions here in Vegas. This thing screams badass in a field full of Mustangs and Camaros in Wild Street.

“The Zip Tie Jedi”, Danny Castle, bought this Nova from NMCA Xtreme Street regular Dan Kroll and proceeded to stick a 632-cube BBC eating a couple of kits of nitrous between the framerails. They were in the process of repairing a leaky nitrous line just before their Wild Street hit and qualified eleventh with a 5.25/134 MPH hit.

What can we really say about Outlaw 8.5 racer Ryan “Toaster” Jones? Toaster simply outclassed the competition in 8.5, ripping off an unreal 5.05 at 147 MPH, nearly four tenths and 9 MPH quicker than the number-two qualifier, Kevin Keller. Jones simply has the tiny tire and power management figured out.

Dana Westover has the only non-domestic vehicle in the Outlaw 8.5 class. The Las Vegas resident turned in a 5.56 at 138 to land in the third qualified spot today.

Mike DeMayo, Jr. must have known what was in store for his Hot Street competition. His 8.11/166 MPH blast was the class of the field by two-and-a-half tenths tonight. The longtime small-block-Ford racer has engine builder Gaby Labiosa of EIC Motorsports helping to get the car down the track this weekend.