Friday

It’s Sweet 16 2.0 time here at SGMP and we are off to a great start under clear skies with a fantastic weather forecast this weekend. The X275 class has been split into two sessions, a Red and Blue group, with Radial vs The World to run in between them. The qualifying sheet will reflect the combined X275 field from each session.

After Kevin Rivenbark’s excellent performance here at Lights Out 10 no one is surprised he earned the top qualifying position after the first session of Radial vs the World with a 3.641 at 203 mph. The team was super consistent here in February and that has paid off in dividends so far.

Top qualifier in X275  is Dean Marinis . The team came out swinging early with a 4.332 at 164 mph. We will probably have to wait until the sun gets off the track for that to be threatened today.

John Urist has some major changes on his Turn 14-sponsored ride with a move to a Bosch Electronics direct injection set up tuned by Uwe Ostmann from Xtreme-DI out of Wixom, Michigan. This is the third time out with this combo which has been in the 4.40’s already. The engine is a billet MMR block with custom heads fed by an 88mm turbo. Uwe founded Xtreme-DI four years ago after working as a Bosch Motorsports fuel systems engineer. “John is pioneering all of this, committing to changing over to all the new stuff and all the risks that come with it,” Uwe told us. Uris is already in the top 16 with a 4.45 at 164 mph. Uwe pictured at left with Mark, who is a longtime crew member with Urist.

Tim Kincaid has a new engine and John Salemi on hand to assist in tuning the car this weekend. “We just changed some stuff in the engine a little bit, changed the compression around a little bit and a new camshaft,” Kincaid said. John Salemi said, “If it smokes it’s all Tim’s fault.” He ran a 3.87 at 191 on his first hit.

DeWayne Mills hurt a piston on his first attempt today. The crew had it replaced and was adjusting the valves when we stopped by to check. The Sand Springs, Oklahoma racer landed 12th after the round with a 3.89 at 208. “Were going to just take our time getting it all back together and try to not to make that mistake again,” Mills told us.

Opelika, Alabama’s Jamie Hancock planned to make a half track pass after some updates to the car prior to coming here and was pleased with the run. “We got a lot of new changes for this race and just trying to figure them out and we are going in the right direction. We have a new nitrous plumbing setup from Nitrous Outlet on the intake and new transmission and converter from M&M along with some changes to the car.” Jamie e ran a 3.84 on the pass.

Lights Out 10 champ Alex Laughlin missed the first session this morning but made up for that jumping into second position with a 3.65 at 210 in round two. After that the team was focused on going fast today but had little luck at that resulting couple of wheelstands and aborted runs. Word was 50-pounds on the nose was not enough to tame the Corvette today.

Macon, Georgia’s Marcus Birt recently teamed up with Steve Jackson and Phil Shuler to go radial racing in the Houston Auto Auction-sponsored, Jerry Bickel-built Corvette and two races in they have the nitrous record after running a 3.650 at 204 in the fourth round of today’s qualifying. Marcus ran Pro Mod and Outlaw 10.5 back in the day and ran ran Pro Mod with NMCA in 2018 and the SNRA in 2017, winning the championship in that series. “ I think we got a little more in it, maybe a .62 … we’re happy so far for sure,” Birt told us. “I have to thank Houston Auto Auction owns the car — we definitely couldn’t do this without them. Craig Amerson and Eddie Wilson have been with me over 10 years on the crew. Thanks also to Jeffery Barker, he’s the guy that put this together with me and Stevie. I hope we continue it and see what happens down the road.” Their plan tomorrow is to run close to the .65 or a little quicker depending on track conditions in the morning then sit back and crunch some data and tune it for the later session and run it hard to see what she’s got.

The Bruder brothers have been in front on X275 for as long as I have been out here doing this with several different combinations as the rule-makers do their best to keep up with the innovation and hard work this team puts in. X275 had four qualifying sessions today with Dean Marinis the early leader with a 4.33 at 164 after the first session. Manny Buginga would take over top qualifier in the second round, running a 4.307 at 166.95, then again for a short time with a 4.270 at 167 the next round. The Bruder’s were having none of that though as Rich dipped to a 4.268 at 163 to take over top qualifier, which would hold for the night. The Bruder’s new combo is from Disomma Racing Engines with a ProCharger providing boost from their F3R 102 head unit.

“We had some issues at the last race,” Rich Bruder told us. “We hurt the engine in Feburary, went back and regrouped and came back out swinging. We went testing in Orlando before we came here, you know my brother and I are all about working the front half and middle of the track. I think all the combos have enough power to go fast up front, and our goal is to go .99 to the 60-foot at this race”

“The 4.26 run was a 1.02 to 60-feet and was carrying the front a bit so probably was actually a little better number if it had tripped the beams normally. “If it picks up there is picks up everywhere. It’s fun, you go out there and make changes and the car adapts to it, we put our tune up in there, the chassis works. Thanks to all our sponsors out there: Menscer, Crazy Don, Disomma for a killer engine, Procharger, Fuel Tech. We put it together and do some testing and the car performs by itself practically.”

Marty Stinnett had a great day after starting out on the bump with a 3.989 at 146 then jumping in with a 3.694 at 204 in the second session with the little small-block that could. Stinnett uses a Jeff Burns engine with Garrett turbos tuned by Wade Hopkins from Southern Speed Racing. After a disappointing performance at Lights Out 10 Marty and Wade went back home and regrouped, checked the whole car over front to back and put it back on the scales.

A few things were found to have issues that needed attention and a plan was formed to address even the slightest concern. Even the best of racers can get complacent on some things every so often you get a wake up call to pay even closer attention. Especially at this level of racing when things just should not do what they do.

“We had not scaled the car since the repairs after the wreck last year at Commerce and found it was out of whack,” Marty told us. “We also wound up making some changes to the torque converter with Joe from ProTorque. We did some testing after Lights Out and were able to show up here confident, knowing we had a really good 60-foot and 330 and hoping it would run out the back like we thoughts it would, and it did.” Marty scored a 1.00 today but racers like Kevin Rivenbark are going .918 and Paolo Guist’s “Black Betty” has been a .917 this weekend. “We are just gonna’ have to be, at bare minimum, running .940’s, so we are gonna work and chip away at that and get to the bottom .240’s to half track and hope we can keep it together out that back cause it still is a small-block.” Marty uses Proformance Transmissions, RC Components wheels, Mickey Thompson tires with help from Turbos Direct, Dan Shoneck, Schaeffer Oil and Diamond Pistons.

Gary White ran very well in the Titan Motorsports Supra scoring a 4.347 and earning top speed with a 172 mph bast through the traps.

Tony Swaim took a hard hit on the left side wall after getting out of shame and skidding across the track in RVW qualifying. He got out of the car afterwards but was transported to a local hospital for evaluation.

Thursday Qualifying Results