NO 1. QUALIFIERS DOMINATE WINNER’S CIRCLE
Number-one qualifiers registered wins in three of four heads-up, no-breakout classes at the Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com South Carolina Spectacular at 
Orangeburg Dragstrip this weekend, the first of six scheduled events this year for the newly formed Coca-Cola Outlaw Doorslammer Series (ODSS) presented by Hooters.
Among those prevailing from the top starting position were Tony Johnson in Outlaw 10.5, Greg Godwin in Pro Modified and Outlaw 275 Drag Radial racer Wes Whittle. Only local driver Chris Tuten from nearby Pelion, South Carolina, broke the trend, winning in Limited Street from last place in the qualifying order. Todd Sinclair also picked up his second race win in as many days in a combined 6.0 and 7.0 index class.
In a short, four-car field due to breakage and accidents for several competitors during Saturday’s three qualifying rounds, Johnson opened with a 4.52 pass on Sunday to beat Curtis Rhodes and his ’68 Camaro from Childersburg, Alabama, before facing off with Mark Swanson in the final.
It was over at the start, as Swanson and his Procharger-equipped Camaro moved seven-thousandths of a second too soon, while Johnson powered his supercharged ’68 Camaro to a winning 4.53 lap at 175.23 mph.
Despite the relatively easy weekend, Johnson, from Conyers, Georgia, expressed satisfaction with his team’s performance.
“We were quickest in every round of qualifying and eliminations, so that’s a good thing,” he pointed out. “Plus, we won, so that’s always good, too, no matter how it happens.”
Godwin, driving the nitrous-boosted ’63 Corvette owned by Orangeburg Dragstrip owner Buddy Boozer, made an off-the-pace bye run in the first round of eliminations, then easily handled Tyler Miller in round two before making another bye run in the semis to secure lane choice for the final with a 3.93 effort at 185.41 mph.
Robbie Matthews from Columbia, South Carolina, meanwhile, made it past veteran chassis man Tommy Mauney in the opening stanza, followed by wins over a red-lighting Danny Blankenship and a traction-challenged Troy Jordan in the semi-finals.
In a classic nitrous versus blower final, Matthews left with a .065 advantage off the start and went 4.07 at 177.37 mph in his supercharged Kaufmann Motorsports ’57 Chevy, but Godwin soon reeled him in and won going away with another 3.93 at 184.64 to earn the race win.
Godwin wasn’t too concerned when he saw Matthews leave first.
“I wasn’t going to push the tree because I knew we could run a low 3.90 and the best they’d run all weekend was in the 4-ohs. This was our race to win,” he said.
Whittle, running the narrow 275-designated DOT tires on his ’98 Mustang for the first time, also was quickest throughout eliminations as he dispatched Peter Harold and Johnny Canaday from the eight-car field before going after Jacksonville, Florida’s Kevin Fiscus in the final round.
Opening with a .054 holeshot, Whittle, from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, secured the win with a 5.10 at 150.50 mph, while Fiscus was forced to shut off early and coast to a nine-second pass.
“It was hot out here today, but we had fun,” said Whittle as he shared victory lane with Fiscus. “I may have to race these little tires more often.”
Tuten, who carries Orangeburg Dragstrip sponsorship on his ’87 Mustang, arrived to the track late on Saturday, allowing himself only one chance to qualify for the eight-car Limited Street field. As luck would have it, he encountered problems in his attempt and was relegated to last place and given a race-day date with number-one starter Eric Dillard and his twin-turboed Mustang.
In probably the biggest upset of the weekend, Tuten left with a sizable .072 head start that allowed his 4.83 at 154.63-mph pass to edge Dillard’s 4.76 at 166.91 combination by just two thousandths at the finish line.
“That was an awesome race; neither one of us knew who won,” Tuten recalled.
In the semis Tuten defeated David Reese, who battled traction issues all weekend long, while his final-round opponent, Brad Edwards, advanced from an opening-round bye to beat Jeremy McElrath.
This time, Edwards moved first, but his 5.06 at 157.45 couldn’t hold off the 4.96 at 152.28 putogether by Tuten.
“I didn’t think I could win here,” Tuten admitted later. “I have the smallest motor in the class, a 302 with a single, 94-millimeter turbo on it, and this is my first time racing Limited Street. Sometimes the good Lord just smiles on you, I guess.”
After winning the combined 6.0/7.0 index final on Saturday night over Robert Holton, Sinclair entered Sunday’s action brimming with confidence.
“I knew we were going to win this even before hitting the water box,” the Chester, South Carolina-based 6.0 driver stated after beating Jerry Cline in a double-breakout final: 5.99 to 6.98. “I was a little surprised it sped up like that, but I knew I had him all the way.”
The Georgia Rumble, the second leg of the Coca-Cola Outlaw Doorslammer Series presented by Hooters, is scheduled for July 9-11, at Silver Dollar Raceway in Reynolds, Georgia.
WINNERS ARE CROWNED
SUNDAY NOTEBOOK –
“We can fix it, but the worst thing is we’re going to miss the NHRA Unleashed event next weekend up in Atlanta,” Lowry said.
Georgia’s Paul Gibbs with his Jeffers Race Cars-built ’70 Cuda.
The car launched with a stout 60-foot time, but almost immediately after that, lost traction and turned hard right into the guardwall. It got up on just its front left tire, with the right rear slick at least three feet in the air and looked like it was going to turn over, but fell back on its wheels and slid to a stop, facing the right wall, about half-track.
The action appeared over, but the initial hit split the fuel cell wide open and the car left a long trail of fuel behind it that ignited at the point of impact. Almost like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, the flame started advancing downtrack toward the car while Gibbs worked to extricate himself from the wreckage.
When the fire finally reached the car a loud “Whoomph!” rang out like a charcoal barbecue starting up with lighter fluid and Gibbs hit his onboard fire extinguishing system. Track workers arrived quickly with handheld extinguishers, too, and Gibbs later got on the track’s PA system to publicly acknowledge and thank them for saving his car from extensive fire damage.
The only injury Gibbs sustained came from a high-pressure, onboard extinguisher nozzle blasting Halon against his right thigh and leaving a nasty-looking welt, right through his fire suit.
In his first time driving the converter-equipped car, Mauney managed just 4.75 at 138 mph to qualify eighth in the 13-car ODSS Pro Mod field, but significantly improved to a 4.25 at 171.89 in the opening round of eliminations that still came up short of Robbie Matthews in his blown ’57 Chevy.
Mauney said he was having trouble getting the car to leave hard, but it had tremendous power to half-track and both he and Merrell expressed confidence in making better showings later this year at both NHRA and ADRL events.
THE QUICKEST DOOR GLIDE – In the opening round of ODSS Pro Mod eliminations at the Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com South Carolina Spectacular, Danny Blankenship steered his blown 1940 Ford (formerly ’41 Willys) to an unofficial quickest pass ever by a Powerglide-equipped doorslammer.
In just his first outing with the car recently acquired from Terry Leggett and only his fifth pass in it, Blankenship left with a .975 60-foot time, followed by 2.604 to halfway (330 feet) and 3.959 at 181.96 mph that beat Eddie Smith to Orangeburg Dragstrip’s eighth-mile finish line.
“I was surprised, given the conditions,” Blankenship said of the 100-degree air, 135-plus degrees track temperature and corrected altitude in the 3,700-feet range. “But the track was like I’d never seen before—ever.”
When informed of the role VP traction specialist Jason Rueckert played in preparing the surface, the Columbia, South Carolina-based driver responded, “Well, Jason’s the man, then, ‘cause the track has always been good, but it’s never been better.”
Like a true racer, Blankenship said there’s still “a lot more” left in the car, but he never got to find out as his race day ended a little prematurely when he turned on the dreaded red bulb in the second round against Robbie Matthews.
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – NO. 1 QUALIFIERS ESTABLISHED
Friday’s three qualifying sessions for the Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com South Carolina Spectacular, the first of six scheduled events this year for the
Coca-Cola Outlaw Doorslammer Series (ODSS) presented by Hooter’s, resulted in Tony Johnson leading the headlining Outlaw 10.5 class, Greg Godwin at the head of the Pro Modified list, Eric Dillard first in Limited Street and Wes Whittle on top of the Outlaw 275 Drag Radial field.
Johnson’s 1968 Camaro tripped the eighth-mile timers at Orangeburg Dragstrip in 4.43 seconds at 179.63 miles per hour, followed by Brian Harrell and Danny Lowry, who will be unable to compete today after crashing his 1998 Mustang in the last qualifying round.
“It just got over toward the (right) wall and I thought it was going to stick, but all of a sudden it turned left and the back end came out from under me,” Lowry recalled. “It hit pretty hard, but I don’t think there’s really that much damage other than cosmetic. It did tear up the four-link (rear suspension) pretty bad, though, which is what really bums me out because we’d just got that working perfectly.”
Godwin, the track record holder at Orangeburg (3.89 seconds), paced the ODSS Pro Mod field with a 3.92 pass at 185.41 mph in his nitrous-boosted ‘63 Corvette, with Danny Blankenship, the only other driver to reach the three-second zone, in second at 3.99 seconds and 180.00 mph with his 1941 Willys.
The final Pro Mod qualifying session also was marred by a crash by Paul Gibbs in his supercharged 1970 Cuda, which hit the right wall nearly head on less than 150 feet from the start, which split the car’s fuel tank wide open, leaving a trail of fuel that ignited, then enveloped the car in flames when it came to rest about half track (330 feet).
“There was no warning at all. I didn‘t even have a chance to get out of it before it hit the wall,” said Gibbs, who like Lowry considered the damage to be relatively light. “Then I saw that trail of fire heading toward me and I hit the fire bottles. I have to give a lot of credit and thanks to the track crew for putting the fire out fast and saving my car from burning up. They did a fantastic job and I can’t thank them enough.”
Dillard reserved his praise for Jason Rueckert of VP Racing Fuels, who was in town from Terre Haute, Indiana, to prep the strip with VP’s latest traction compound.
“This track usually isn’t that good to me, but Jason’s got it working better than I’ve ever seen it,” Dillard said after improving his own number-one time to 4.70 seconds at 167.66 mph to secure the top spot in Friday night’s final session.
Whittle’s Outlaw 275 Drag Radial-leading 5.05 pass at 150.45 mph came in his second attempt on Friday, but his first day ever on the smaller 275-designated (nine-inch wide) tires.
“I usually run the bigger 325 (12.5-inch) tires, but everyone kept telling me I had to try this,” Whittle said. “The track was a little slick, but that’s okay with me; that’s the best conditions for me.”
In a combined 6.0 and 7.0 index class race, after two rounds of qualifying and three rounds of eliminations, Todd Sinclair of Chester, South Carolina, and Robert Holton of Monks Corner, South Carolina, met in the final round.
Holton, the 7.0 finalist, broke out at 6.98 and 95.29 mph, while Sinclair took the win in only his second competition appearance at the Orangeburg strip with a near-perfect 6.004 pass at 114.04 mph in his 1970 split-bumper Camaro.
QUALIFYING RESULTS
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SATURDAY EVENING NOTEBOOK –
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SATURDAY – ONE QUALIFIER IN THE BOOKS
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SATURDAY – MID-DAY UPDATE
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SATURDAY MORNING NOTEBOOK – GETTING THE EVENT UNDERWAY
After getting rained out early last month at Holly Springs, Mississippi, early last month, Roy Hill’s and George Howard’s heads-up Outlaw Doorslammer Series is set to open its inaugural season today at Orangeburg Dragstrip in Neeses, South Carolina.
Headlined by a $10,000-to-win Outlaw 10.5 race, the series also features Pro Mod, Limited Street, Outlaw 275 (Drag Radial) and 4.70, 5.30, 6.0 and 7.0 index classes.
After rain spoiled Friday’s planned activities, the track opened for test-n-tune at 11 a.m. today, with several entries taking advantage of the free passes before a brief, but heavy rain shower about 2 p.m. again interrupted the show. Within an hour, though, the Orangeburg Dragstrip track crew had the lanes back in shape and teams were towing back to the staging lanes for some last-minute testing.
With ambient temperature in the mid-90s, the track temp reached 134 degrees before the rain, but dropped to 123 afterward.
Round one of qualifying is expected to begin at 6 p.m., with additional sessions scheduled for 8 and 10 p.m.
He ran 4.55 at just 128 mph, however, with extensive smoke appearing just before he reached the finish line. Fortunately, it appears only a loose oil fitting was the culprit and the engine diaper kept both the track and Lynch’s tires safe and dry.
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