The nation’s best return to Sin City for the 13th running of the famed Street Car Super Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The thirteenth running of this event draws the West Coast’s racers out for a last hurrah before the end of the season; there are a number of East Coasters who make the long, long haul west to take part in the race as well. Follow along with us all weekend long as we bring you the behind-the-scenes stories you won’t see anywhere else.

Let’s start off with the moonshot of the day. In the Pro Mod Shootout this evening, Eric Dillard–who stopped the clocks with a 5.700 pass in Outlaw Pro Mod qualifying–was driving the Q80 Racing Team’s Mustang. In the last pairing of the shootout, he was set to face off against John Stanley, who had cranked off his own personal best 5.579 at 263 mph blast earlier in the day in Stanley & Weiss Caddy CTS-V. Burnouts commenced, and after the pair backed up, crew chief Camp Stanley waved the Caddy off, setting Dillard up for a single pass. Dillard, perhaps sensing the big moment to come, quickly took the tree. The car rocketed out of the hole, stopping the quarter-mile clock with an insane 5.453 at 274.11 mph to set the tone for the weekend.

Simply insane.

Jermaine Boddie’s Nova is one clean machine. The longtime grudge racer didn’t run in either Turbo Pro Mod or Outlaw Pro Mod during the qualifying sessions, but he ripped off a stout 6.47 at only 170 mph in the Pro Mod Shootout tonight, pulling the chutes early and coasting through the lights. Just how quick is this thing? Will he ever show his true hand?

The Sorceress.

Earlier today I caught a nice shot of the Don Speer-driven, Rod Tschiggfrie-owned Hurst Olds Pro Mod. At the time I didn’t realize that we’ve seen this car previously; our very own Brian Wagner caught it at PRI at the end of last year. At the time the team hadn’t run the car in its current configuration, but they made the best of their attempts today despite a broken rocker arm, running a personal-best 6.84 at 213 mph. The team discovered a spark plug issue which morphed into the broken rocker arm.

When I stopped by their pits tonight, they were replacing the cylinder heads, as the broken rocker left a piece of the stand bolt in the head. Tschiggfrie and I proceeded to have a long conversation, where he explained the motivation behind this seriously-wicked piece of hardware.

“This is my first love; you never want to get rid of your first love,” he says. At one time, Tschiggfrie actually drove this car daily in a Pro Street configuration, with a supercharged big-block Oldsmobile engine. It then morphed into sucking down methanol fuel, which Tschiggfrie purchased by the drum for $.43/gallon, still driving the car every day to college while he lived in Florida. Following a show in 1989–where it picked up a Best Of Show award–it was seriously damaged in a trailer accident, whereupon he eventually decided to build it into what it is today.

As we talked, I caught wind of the word MoTec, which immediately led me to think about a name synonymous with the engine management system here in the US, none other than Shane Tecklenburg of Tuned by Shane T. Guess who was in the trailer fiddling around with some of the parts from the car?

As I’ve worked with Shane in the past, I had an idea how this car came to be what it is today; a tagged, insured, and fully-capable street car that starts and idles like a dream. Tecklenburg has outfitted the car with true flex-fuel capability that can run anything from full-on methanol all the way down to 88-octane pump fuel and even E-85. This is accomplished through the use of flex-fuel sensors calibrated by Shane and 32 fuel injectors (that’s 4 per cylinder!?) that are capable of flowing 11,000 cc of fuel per cylinder. There are a pair of Injector Dynamics ID1700s and a pair of Siemens 2200 cc injectors dumping fuel into each cylinder under full power.

Tschiggfrie, in conjunction with Dick Maskin of Dart, developed a 5.300-inch bore space big-block Chevy that has full water jackets in it for cooling and is pumped up by a pair of Precision 98 mm Pro Mod Gen II turbochargers. This thing is such a street car that Tecklenburg had to remind them to drain the antifreeze out of it before coming to the race.

The 6.5-year-long project is not just a race car. It’s outfitted with a backup camera that activates not only when the car is in reverse but also during burnouts so Don can keep tabs on how the burnout is progressing, and the view shows up right on the dash in front of the driver.

And, as if that’s not enough, there’s a full stereo system, working turn signals, hazard lights, and even power windows. Although the car weighs in at a portly 3,000 pounds, the team has eventual designs on running 300 mph in the standing half-mile. What I thought would be a quick conversation as I checked out what appeared to be a unique Pro Mod turned into an hour-long discussion with Rod, Don, and Shane about all of the different tricks and unique pieces on this car. What a unique and interesting piece!

John Urist is finally getting a handle on the Turn 14 Distribution 275 Radial Mustang. The 358ci Hellion Turbo-powered, MMR-GEN X-engined car gave him fits for the first year of its existence, as he had to basically re-learn his entire racing program due to the new chassis and engine configuration. Of late, Urist has been coming on strong, running in the 4.40s in NMRA trim. Here in 275 Radial, he’s qualified third after one round with a 4.64 at 161 mph. We fully expect to see him turn up the tune through the rest of the weekend now that he has a baseline.

Just 3.7-seconds into the run, the timing wheel decided that it had had enough and split itself into two pieces. Briggs explained that on a car like this, the harmonics are so rowdy that they are constantly going over each and every nut and bolt on the car, as the weight of the rotating assembly combined with the rotors spinning in the blower basically try to shake the engine into a pile of parts on every run. They borrowed a new timing wheel from another competitor and the car was back together and ready for tomorrow when I stopped by their pit area.

Ever seen bullhorns in front of the rear tires? You have now. Bet you’re wondering why…

The Giuseppe Gentile-driven, Robert Remillard-owned Evolution Racing Team Mustang was extremely nose-heavy, with 59 percent of the weight on the nose of the car, and they fought it at every turn trying to get the chassis to perform. After consultation, the team realized that the bullhorns at the front of the car were putting even more downforce on the nose and preventing the car from getting up on the tire. A conversation between the team and Josh Deeds of Deeds Performance led them to try something new: Deeds routed the downpipes from each of the 102 mm turbochargers along the framerails underneath each door and out the rocker panel just in front of the rear tire.

“By doing this, we basically moved 120 pounds of force right onto the rear tires. We can see it on the datalogger at the shock sensors,” Remillard explains. “We should see around 200 pounds of force at the rear tires under full boost.”

The Jason Pettis-built Brad Anderson 8x engine made 43 pounds of boost today but is capable of 70 psi through the lights. Gentile ran a 4.23 at 186 mph on the limiter, as the engine management system was pulling 13 degrees of timing for three seconds of the run, leaving the car to lug it through the lights on only 12 degrees of timing. The all-new combo performed quite well given the limitations, and Remillard told me they feel like they’re on the right path and are excited about the future with this new Outlaw 10.5 program.

Lots more to come tomorrow–stay tuned!

Round One Qualifying Results