Network
Saturday
The National Muscle Car Association (NMCA) tour is making its final stop on the six-race tour for 2019 with the 2019 Muscle Car Nationals. Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis, Indiana hosts one of the biggest street-legal drag races of the year. The lion’s share of class points competition shows commanding leads for the titles with crucial battles in play for the second and third spots in the World Championship rivalry.
At high noon on Saturday, round two of qualifying pulled out of the lanes in all categories. In VP Racing Fuels Xtreme Pro Mod, the ladder has moved around with Don Walsh Jr. and Jim Wider swapping the one and two spots. Craig Sullivan is Mr. Consistent with his ’69 Daytona Superbird by improving his time but holding the number three position.
The ladders are set for the Sunday elimination event. Some of the standout finishers in qualifying include Chris Holbrook who dominated the Holley EFI – Factory Super Car class with at least a .08-second ET over the remaining field. With a similar performance level, Leonard Long shifted his way into the top spot of FST Carburetors – NA 10.5 with a 7.83 ET that is .07-seconds above the field.
Jim Widener stepped up with a 3.73o ET to move up into the number one position of the VP Racing Fuels Xtreme Pro Mod class.
After round two of qualifying on Saturday morning, the Holley EFI – Factory Super Cars ladder remains the same as round one with Chris Holbrook holding the number one spot. Scott Libersher improved his ET but remains second on the ladder.
Other big moves during session two qualifying included Billy Glidden stepping into the number one position of ARP – Nitrous Pro Street. Tony Gillig arrived following the first qualifying session and found his place in the number two position while Tricia Musi stepped up her qualifying number over a tenth of a second to a 4.39 to keep her in the third spot.
Leonard Long holds on to the number one spot for FST Carburetors – NA 10.5 class. David Theisen remains in the number two spot since Friday qualifying while Don Baskin made a big move from number five up to the number three position.
One of the unique events within the event is the Quick Fuel Nostalgia Super Stock All-Star Shootout, which combines eliminations between the NMCA Nostalgia Super Stockers against the Victory Nostalgia Super Stock racers.
As part of the Nostalgia Super Stock competition this final weekend of the NMCA tour 2019, each group will compete with a shootout at the end of eliminations. Steve Pugh, Don Lill, and Dave Doss explain that it is a fun bragging rights runoff after the final rounds for each group.
Saturday, round 2 qualifying
After a Friday absence from Nitrous Pro Street qualifying, Tony Gillig and team pulled in Saturday morning and roared into the number two spot with a 4.38 ET. Gillig told Dragzine that he actually shut off a little early and they had some tweaks to improve on their final round qualifying shot.
As the team looks over their currently number two qualified Extreme Pro Mod Corvette, John Walsh Jr. said that they have never fully tamed the Indy racing surface. The Procharger combination has much more left in it for the final qualifying round.
With the BES Racing Engines team preparing for their final qualifying shot, Shawn Pevelor explains how their Street Outlaw class Mustang has been solid all season long. He said, “What we started with as a 700-cubic inch combination has done well all season. Right now we just want to make a good final showing for the year.”
Saturday, round three final qualifying
Jordan and Jeff Ensslin finished number four and five in Nitrous Pro Street qualifying. "We have more finessing for our engine and clutch combination," Jeff Esselin said. "Both cars are set up almost identically so we can use info from each car to tune both. We're working in small steps, but both cars teach us something with every pass."
