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It’s day two of the NMCA Muscle Car Nationals here at the legendary Beech Bend Raceway Park, with two sessions of heads-up qualifying on tap, along with the Dave Duell Classic for the throngs of Nostalgia Super Stock competitors. As always, with the support of Comp Cams, we’ll be bringing you coverage throughout the day and the weekend, so keep it right here!
Well, this isn’t the way you want to start a busy day of drag racing. The forecast for this weekend had turned from bleak to so-so as the week progressed, but today’s 50% chance of precipitation proved to be inaccurate, as racers awoke to driving rains this morning. As of a little after 11 a.m. local time, the rain is still coming down and no decision has been made about today’s program as of yet.
There hasn’t been much activity here at Beech Bend today, unless of course you’re a kid (or a kid at heart) and enjoy playing in the puddles.
That's Jennifer Brooke Rice's Nitrous Pro Street Mustang, and that's the engine not in Jennifer Brooke Rice's Mustang. Brooke Rice put a rod through the block Thursday in testing and father Ed Rice has been burning the midnight oil, driving back home to Tennessee overnight to get new parts and repair the motor. Ed returned with the motor this afternoon and the team set right off getting it assembled to finish the weekend.
Tumble Shoals, Arkansas native Brian Green is trying his hand at the Radial Wars class this weekend in a car borrowed from good friend, Donnie Hall. Green, who crewed for many-time NMRA Super Street Outlaw champion John Urist back in the mid-2000s, bolted a set of new Mickey Thompson 3062R radials to the car that has been 4.35 in Outlaw 275 trim in the past. The car, originally built and campaigned by Randy Westmoreland, features power from a 568 cubic inch big block Chevrolet with a pair of 88mm turbochargers. Green encountered some issues with the oil pump primer prior to yesterday's first session of qualifying and was unable to make the call.
Despite the best efforts of the Beech Bend track crew and NMCA officials to get the track dry, a thunderstorm that’s presently skirting the race track dropped some brief showers in the shutdown area during the drying process, and with more rain forecast for later this evening, the announcement has been made that today’s activities have been cancelled. With even more precipitation in the forecast for tomorrow, series officials aren’t taking any chances and have moved the eliminations program up, with Pro Mod set for round one at 10 a.m. in an effort to beat Mother Nature.
