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The Florida Street Outlaws has been months in the making, getting started back in July of 2013 when Joe Miller came up with the plan and two of his long time friends, Brett “Big Schwag” Wagner and Rockin’ Rob Cherkas, were brought in to be a part of the event and announce. With the advent of the Street Outlaws TV show on the Discovery Channel several states have begun similar programs with varying degrees of success. Florida’s inaugural event in Lakeland was plagued by rain and delayed from its original date on Saturday to Sunday, hurting the car and spectator count but still producing a spectacular event. When Sunday rolled around, the weather was nice and sunny and the racing was top-notch, with fifteen cars on the grounds vying for a spot on the “Top 10” list.
The rules for the event were pretty straightforward. First, the scoreboards are turned off and no elapsed times are given out, which is supposed to mimic street racing, but in a safe and legal environment. There are definitely no clocks on the street. Next, theres no prep whatsoever on the track surface.
The track Sunday was nice and clean and gathered more rubber through the day as racing progressed. It was blown off around the starting line and was effected some by oil cleanups, but otherwise, was left alone. The cars themselves have minimal rules, requiring valid Florida tags and working head, tail and brake lights. There are no full tube chassis cars allowed but traditional back half cars are accepted. As for the competition itself, like most races, if you red light, you’re out. the same applies if you cross the centerline.
The event started with shakedown runs the morning, followed by a drivers meeting just after the noon hour. By then two cars were already out of the running — one was Andrew Richards’ Pontiac Trans Am, which was sporting a fresh engine but burnt a few plugs ending his day early. His car was one of several entered that were more street car than race car. Joe Miller went over the rules and procedures with the racers and Patrick Utt from Racequip brought out a pair of helmets for the racers to sign. Racequip is the title sponsor for the Florida Street Outlaws and he donated helmets were to go to the winner and to Joe Miller.
John Townsend is a regular at Lakeland and Orlando running the Outlaw Big Tire class with runs in the low five-second range. Townsend and the Daytona boys are veterans of the streets of Florida and long time competitors at the Orlando World Street Nationals and the street events held there at the Funday Sunday events years ago.
There were some familiar faces on hand for the first event, including multi-time NMRA/NMCA True Street winner Randy Seward and local racer Eddie Miller, who brought out his naturally-aspirated Duster for a shot at the list. Miller is a multi-time Drag Week winner, competing last year in the N/A division and earning the win and the record.
Lil’ Bull’s ride has been around a long time. The past couple of years he has really stepped up the performance and consistency though it’s still pretty hard on those big meats out back. It not only runs, but it’s a show stopper in the looks department, too.
During the drivers meeting the racers signed the two helmets donated by Racequip. From left to right; Eddie Miller, Randy Seward and Lil' Bull, Ashley Maupin from Florida Performance is holding the helmet.
We took some photos on the track with Joe Miller and some of the Street Outlaws crew. From left to right; Racequip owner Patrick Utt, Racequip employee Fred Cook, Joey Miller, Joe Miller, Bret Wagner, Rockin’ Rob Cherkas and Willard Kinzer.
After the business was wrapped up at the drivers meeting we went straight to eliminations. The first round of winners would set the top eight cars with the losers coming back to battle it out for the remaining two spots. Chips were drawn grudge style for the Florida Street Outlaws pairings and lane choice on the starting line and it was time for the race to begin, starting off with Holeshot Performance Wheels 7.50 Index and the Rockin’ Rob Quick 8.
Emo Caraballo runs this 1976 Vego with a small block on two stages on nitrous. He drives this little Chevy all over Lakeland and to various local car shows as well as competing in 6.50 Index here at Stingray Dragway. He is here with his wife Angel this weekend.
The first pair out running for the list was Emo Caraballo and Lil’ Bull in an all-Chevy matchup with Emo’s nitrous small block Vega taking on Lil’ Bull’s roots-blown big block ragtop. Lil’ Bull took an easy win with a wheels-up launch and .088 reaction time. Clayton Weaver put his N/A S-10 Blazer in the beams next to face Randy Seward’s twin-turbo small block Ford. Seward is a tough competitor and strives to have a consistent car on race day, and he move on to the next round.
Bobby Padgett is part of the Daytona crew and shares a shop with John Townsend. Padgett was wheels-up all day with his Camaro and faced off with Tom Burnett’s twin-turbo 408 small block first-gen out of Sarasota. Tom competed on Passtime in Bradenton, running 11.00 with a 150 shot of nitrous at the time in the car he’s owned the car since 1992. Padgett took the win after Burnett’s foul start.
Bobby Padgett runs this hard-launching 1972 Camaro he’s owned for twenty six years with a 434 small Chevy on the bottle. Padgett is also a long time though now retired street racer coming out to have fun in a safe environment. He also runs the Outlaw Big Tire class here with a third-gen Camaro with Action Speed and Custom in Daytona Beach on board as a sponsor for the team.
Tom Burnett has owned this clean Camaro since 1992. It’s a got a small Chevy with a pair of 60mm Garrett turbos. The cage and turbo system were built by Stacy’s Custom Muffler in Sarasota. The turbo piping was built from roll cage tubing for durability as the thicker material is much less likely to crack over the long term. A CSU Carb was built for the combo and tuned by Keatsie Motorsports, also in Sarasota. Tom runs this car all over the streets of Sarasota and is a member at Need2speed.com and will be racing at their Dead Hooker track event in Bradenton next Saturday.
Next up was John Paterno versus Chris Patchen. Both racers are regulars here in the 275 vs. 28’s class held at the Jungle Shootouts. Patchen killed the tree sending Paterno to try his luck for a shot at the Nos. 8 through 10 spots. Both cars made nice clean runs. Luther Hawkins fouled out in the grocery getter box Chevy Malibu to Jason Woodard’s early box Nova.
Eddie Miller made the tow up from Port St Lucie, Florida with his Drag Week winning Duster. He set the record in his class with an 8.58 at 159 MPH. He faced a late thrash session after tearing the engine down to replace the head gaskets a couple of weeks ago. On day three of Drag Week Eddie lost a fuel pump causing a lean condition, burning several spark plugs and hurting a head gasket. Lucky for him it’s a naturally aspirated combo so there was no catastrophic damage as would be seen with nitrous or a boosted combo. Once into the engine he found a broken ring land and had to order some replacement pistons which came just in time for Eddie to get the engine back together Saturday morning. Eddie owns The Engine Works, a full service machine shop in Port St. Lucie. Miller will be switching to EFI soon with help from Aeromotive and Holley Dominator EFI. Power comes from a big block Chrysler topped with canted valve heads from Indy Cylinder Head.
Eddie Miller and John Fernandez were up next with Miller caught sleeping at the tree, handing Fernandez the easy win. Eric Kenward showed up with a grudge Fox body Stang out of Eric’s Automotive, campaigned for just the second time. Kenward was struggling with keeping the car hooked up down track and fell victim to John Townsend’s nitrous sniffing big block 1975 Nova.
Chris Patchen is another racer from Ocala, Florida. The “Easter Egg” was built by Dan Neumann and Richard Ness and features a small block nitrous combo that normally runs in X275. Clockwise from top right is Chris Patchen, Mark Ness, Richard Ness and Joe Bracket. Josias Rios’ BRC Performance is one of several sponsors which include Dan Neumann Race Cars and Fast Forward Race Engines. On the right, Richard Ness holds it straight in a burnout early Sunday morning in testing
After round one the winners and losers came back for more action, drawing chips again for pairing and lane choice with the first round winners racing each other, and the same for the round one runner ups. Patchen put his pastel blue Plasti Dip-painted Mustang in the beams with Lil’ Bull putting an .015 reaction up and going on to win the round. The margin of victory would be greater than the elapsed time difference by a good bit, allowing Patchen to move up the list.
Randy Seward and his girlfriend Donna brought their familiar True Street twin-turbo Fox out to play and take a shot at the list. Seward is sporting a fresh engine for the 2014 season and looking forward to the NMRA season opener at Bradenton. He's a multiple time winner there in True Street with a couple of Spring Break Shootout victories to go with the crowns and capes awarded to the True Street winner. He's basically using this event as a warm-up to shake the car down after a ten week hiatus while the motor was freshened, the longest downtime since he's had the car. He would be very consistent on the un-prepped surface, running several passes within a tenth of each other.
Next up was Randy Seward and Jason Woodard. Seward was late again and there wasn’t enough room for the turbocharged Mustang to catch up at Stingray Draway’s eighth-mile facility. Randy doesn’t do a lot of heads-up racing, as True Street is all about putting three runs back-to-back. The participants aren’t racing each other as much as the clock with the exception at the NMRA Spring Break Shootout, where the top eight cars in class face off for some heads-up action. Randy’s lack of time on a pro tree put him at a bit of a disadvantage.
Clayton Weaver hails from Havana, Florida, just north of Tallahassee on the Florida-Georgia line. His S-10 Blazer was completed about three months ago with a naturally-aspirated 582-inch big block Chevy providing the power. He purchased the truck as a roller and converted it to Pro Street-style machine. Clayton has tested the track at US 19 Dragway in Albany, Georgia and told is he “just thought it would be a fun race to come to.” He is number nine on the Florida Street Outlaws list and winner of the un-official long distance award.
Bobby Padgett would face teammate John Townsend in the next pairing out. Reaction time would play a role in this match too, allowing Townsend plenty of margin on the top end to coast on for the round win. John Fernandez would have a single up next, then it was Clayton Weaver and Emo Caraballo with Weaver taking the win in his naturally-aspirated big block Chevy powered S-10 Blazer. The last pair in round two was Eric Kenward and Tom Burnett. Burnett got the win in an upset victory after Kenward got loose near the stripe. The car made a move towards the center and Eric did a great job saving it from the wall after getting up on three wheels trying to stay out of Burnett’s lane. Eddie Miller was the last car in round two with a single, and another clean straight run.
If you have followed our outlaw racing coverage of the 2013 Orlando World Street Nationals you may recall the Zombie Wagon from the folks at Headhunter Racing. The crew threw this box Chevy together over a couple of weekends for this event, turning their parts car into a street brawler with parts they had laying around along with a rear housing and suspension from TRZ Motorsports. They blew the dust off a small block Chevy that was sitting in a corner of the shop, added a plate system, dropped it between the framerails and came out to have some fun with Luther Hawkins tagged for driving duties. The Headhunter crew hails from Ocala, a community well known for it’s street scene back when. It’s fair to say anyone who was anyone coming up in the 80’s or early 90’s in the central Florida area street scene paid their dues at Moss Bluff.
Round three would be Fernandez versus Woodard and Patchen versus Townsend to decide number three and four on the list while Eddie Miller would face off with Tom Burnett and Clayton Weaver running a single and facing the winner in the final.
Jason Woodard's Chevy II took the go-ahead win in the semifinal after Fernandez' foul start. On the left is Chris Patchen and John Townsend one hundred and fifty feet out. Close exciting racing where anything can happen is the way we love it
Fernandez put the ACME Racing Firebird in the beams and promptly went red, wasting a nice run as Woodard had trouble early and aborted his run. He would secure the number four spot with that loss. Patchen and Townsend made it look close 150 feet out after a poor reaction by Townsend, but he was able to drive by the now hurt Patchen. Post race inspection revealed a burned piston for the Ocala-based crew.
John Townsend is officially the number one on the FL Street Outlaws list. The long time Florida racer has many friends and family here for support in his first event back after a hard bout with throat cancer over eight months. His wife Roberta is here along with her parents and the Townsend’s daughter Abby. Friends and crew are Robert Freund from Action Performance, Robert Benson, Bobby Padgett, Robert Itani, who also donated parts for the Nova, Jeff Lade is partners on the engine with John, Paul Stevens owns Auto Magic of Daytona who is a sponsor and supplied the tires. Other sponsors are Outlaw Race Fuels and Quick Tire of Daytona. John’s Nova is old school and is entirely home built with a MSD 6-AL ignition firing off the mixture provided by a Holley Dominator carb. and two stacked nitrous plates.
Eddie Miller would make easy work of Tom Burnett’s street cruising Camaro in their match and Clayton Weaver made another consistent pass.
In the final round it would be Townsend versus Woodard for the number one spot, with the two naturally-aspirated cars of Miller and Weaver racing for eighth spot on the list. Miller had the faster car here and let Weaver get away first as caution against a red light and went on to take the round and eighth spot.
The battle for the quickest man in Florida had Woodard out of the gate first, but he was outgunned by Townsend’s big block as he watched the newer Chevy drive by to earn the title. All in all a great day of racing and meeting up with old friends. The call outs are already coming before the next date is even set for round two, so things should get pretty interesting in Florida in the coming months.
Florida Street Outlaws Top Ten List
1. John Townsend
2. Jason Woodard
3. Chris Patchen
4. John Fernandez
5. Lil Bull
6. Bobby Padgett
7. Randy Seward
8. Eddie Miller
9. Clayton Weaver
10. Tom Burnett
