THE SERIAL KILLER PERFORMANCE – As always, the premier Radials vs. the World class drew heavy hitters from across the country and even a couple of Canucks to South Georgia Motorsports Park Mar. 24-27, for Lights Out 13, the first of three major Duck X Productions events at the track this year.
No stranger to the Duck X winner’s circle at SGMP with a couple of Outlaw 632 wins in his past, and even a Magic 8 win over the top eight RVW qualifiers for No Mercy 12 just last fall, Ken Quartuccio finally broke through with his first Duck X Radials vs. the World win on a 32-car ladder at Lights Out 13.
“It’s a huge win because the extra round of competition throws a dynamic into it that makes it super hard,” Quartuccio stated. He explains traditional stick-and-ball sports like football, baseball, hockey, provide a 50:50 opportunity for each team to win and plenty of opportunities for good plays to overcome bad plays throughout a game. But drag racing by its nature pits 16 or 32 teams against each other and requires a perfect result from each of them to win every time they go to the line.
“To get the trophy at the end of the day, you have to be perfect four times in a row. But you add another round and now it’s five times. That extra round throws a lot more into it, right? You’ve gotta’ give those bracket guys credit that run six, seven, eight rounds for a win. I don’t even know how those guys do that. So yeah, that extra round just makes it that much harder to be perfect and that’s why this win means so much to us.”
California’s Jason Lee qualified his Procharger-equipped ’69 Camaro on top of the 24-car RVW entry list with a 3.54-seconds effort at an also class-leading 208.07 mph. Next came Georgia’s own Norm Bryson with a 3.57 at 206.57 in his nitrous-fed ’19 Corvette, with Bryan Markiewicz of Florida third at 3.61 at 204.73 mph in another Procharger-boosted ’69 Camaro.
Canadian racer Paolo Giust put his supercharged ’69 Camaro fourth with a 3.65 blast at 205.60 mph and Connecticut’s Quartuccio filled out the top five with a 3.68 at 201.13 in his Procharger ’69 Camaro.
The opening round of racing Saturday afternoon came under unseasonably hot conditions and saw a tricky track surface take several teams by surprise, including Lee, who got away with a tire-striking, eight-second result thanks to a competition bye. Series standouts Eric Dillard, Shawn Ayers, and Ev Bernardo were not so fortunate, however, as each was eliminated in the first round by significantly lower qualified entries.
But Lee reestablished himself as the class of the field in round two on Saturday night with a 3.49 solo pass, marking the lone foray into the forties by anyone for the weekend. He again set low ET for the round in Sunday’s quarterfinals with a 3.54 win over Tim Meisner and appeared a lock to the final; however, his race ultimately ended with another loss of traction off the hit in the semis against Quartuccio.
Regardless, he advanced to the quarterfinals on Sunday against Giust, where the Canadian earned a .018 headstart, but Quartuccio’s 3.60 at 204.88 package was enough to beat Giust’s 3.64 at 205.7 mph by 11-thousandths of a second.
Waiting for him in the semis was the soon-to-be-traction-deprived Lee, who got away first with a solid .021 lead, while Quartuccio dug in for a 3.68-seconds trip at 203.46 mph to the final round.
Meeting him there would be Markiewicz, who also made a pair of solo runs on Saturday after Justin Swanstrom was a no show for round two in his unique, turbocharged 2018 Lexus. Markiewicz came back on Sunday with a 3.68 at 199.32 to beat Calvin Franco, then ran 3.64 at 202.24 to negate a .021 holeshot by Jamie Hancock and earn lane choice for the final against Quartuccio.
That final saw Quartuccio leave with a decent if not stellar .055 reaction time, while Markiewicz was uncharacteristically late with a .143 light. Not helping matters, his car quickly entered a significant wheelstand, forcing Markiewicz to pedal and slow to a 3.77 at 198.76-mph pass.
Quartuccio meanwhile put together a solid 3.76 at 200.35-mph lap to take the Lights Out 13 RVW trophy and traditional Duck X winner’s leather cowboy hat home to Wallingford, CT.
After having gone to the final at No Mercy 12 last fall at SGMP, Quartuccio revealed he came to Lights Out with the same tune-up.
“We knew we don’t have the speed to run with guys like Jason (Lee) or Markiewicz; they’re tough. So we just worked on the fact that we wanted to make sure the car went down every time,” Quartuccio said.
“But yesterday in the heat for round one we tried something that was totally unorthodox. We were like, it’s never gonna’ work, but we’re gonna’ try it anyway because we have nothing to lose. And, well, what we learned yesterday in e-one is what won us the race.”
He added it all came down to power management and racing to only what the track would allow.
“If we would’ve ran rounds last night, we wouldn’t have had a chance against guys like Jason or Markiewicz. These guys, they have the fast stuff figured out. The problem is, when you go really fast, it’s hard to slow down enough. But if you’re a little slower–like us–you can give it little nibbles and try to go a little faster, a little faster each time,” he explained.
“So yeah, it just worked out for us. We just concentrated on making decent runs and that’s really how we have all the success we have, because we’re never the fastest.”
After piloting his Switzer Dynamics nitrous-injected ’07 Corvette to a first-place 3.74 at 198.88-mph pass in qualifying, Hall set low ET for three of the five elimination rounds, ultimately finishing with a 3.77-seconds pass to beat Eric Dillard in the final.
His weekend was far from stress free, however.
“Yeah, it was a fun weekend, but we had our share of ups and downs, too. I mean, it started with the toter breaking down on the way here,” Hall revealed.
After driving seven hours from home in Laytonsville, MD, to pick up crew chief Brandon Switzer at his shop in Denver, NC, Hall and team were left stranded in the rain for nine hours with a broken-down tow rig alongside NC Rte. 16.
“So we had a bunch of fun with that and then we get here and have a bunch of just little, itty-bitty gremlins just bite us all weekend long,” he added. “Nothing major, thankfully, but just enough to keep us working.”
With number-32 qualifier Jeff Miller unable to answer the call, Hall ran unopposed to a 3.79 at 196.64 in round one of racing. Next, he took on Mark Woodruff and his twin-turbo C6 Corvette and managed to overcome a .016 holeshot by Woody with a 3.77 at 187.13-mph pass.
The quarter-finals saw Hall run low ET for the round with a dominating 3.72 win at 197.88 over Craven Moore and his Hemi-equipped ’87 Buick.
The semis provided the most controversy and drama of the event, as Hall appeared to leave .087 too soon and handed the win and an off-the-pace trip to the final to David Singletary and his Procharger-equipped ’15 Camaro. However, video replay proved the lower-left staging bulb on Hall’s side of the tree burned out immediately as it illuminated when he rolled in, and that’s what triggered his early departure.
“God bless David Singletary. He had the best attitude in the world, which, you know, I think I would’ve too, if I’d seen what was provided,” Hall said later. “But after that I just stunk on the tree.”
He posted a .098 light against a sizable .062 holeshot by Singletary for the rerun, then .137 in the final, or .090 behind Dillard’s .047 leave, which typically would spell disaster. However, Dillard’s Proline Procharger-boosted ’69 Camaro lost traction off the hit and though he quickly recovered, a 3.92 at 191.16 led to a .065 margin of victory for Hall, who ran 3.77 at 197.39 to cap off his winning weekend.
“I saw him (Dillard) right out there beside me when we left, which usually isn’t a good sign, but then he suddenly went away and I started whoopin’ and hollerin’ in there because I knew we had it won then,” Hall said.
“You know, we run against these boosted cars and they have it all figured out. We like to poke a lot of fun at Proline and call them the Cheaters’ Club and all that stuff, but they’re all good guys; they’re just a good target. They always run really well and you gotta’ put your best foot forward against them every single time.
“Our data is just one vehicle and we have to really get at it and we can’t pussyfoot around, for lack of a better term. We gotta’ lead the pack, and fortunately Mother Nature was on our side today, too,” he continued. “Give ’em a lot of water and give ’em a lot of heat, that’s how we do it. We can make power just because we just put more in it; they can’t do that.
“And we didn’t leave anything on the table. Brandon (Switzer) told me it had a short fuse and it’d be going to the engine shop win or lose after we were done. And fortunately, it was a win.”
In a brief presentation ceremony prior to eliminations starting for Lights Out 13 at South Georgia Motorsports Park, Hubbard accepted the award and cash prize courtesy of Copson’s family and Duck X promoter Donald “Duck” Long.
“Sadly, we lost Blake Copson to a (non-racing) accident last year and his dad, Joe, along with the rest of his family just wanted to do something to honor his memory and recognize a fellow racer who represented the spirit that Blake himself brought to the track every time,” Long said.
“What we were looking for was somebody who consistently goes above and beyond for fellow racers, and to be honest we had several of our racers in mind,” Long explained.
“But Kenny Hubbard, he’s given away parts, he feeds I think half the crowd at every race, and he’s always willing to lend a hand or give some good advice to a racer in need, so he’s exactly the type of person we all were thinking of when Blake’s family first came to me with the idea.”
Hubbard said he felt honored, grateful and humbled by the gesture.
“This is surprising, for sure, but these events mean a lot to us and we, my whole family, really enjoy being here,” Hubbard said. “I always tell people I come here to cook first and race second because you’re guaranteed to have a good time that way.”
Additionally, Copson’s family posted a $1,000 bonus to each of the top qualifiers in X275 and Pro 275 at Lights Out 13, claimed by Rob Goss and Mo Hall, respectively.
In the last of four Pro 275 qualifying sessions, Holder tripped the eighth-mile beams at South Georgia Motorsports Park in 3.926 seconds at 202.12 mph to place 20th of 32 starters. His father, Roger Holder, slotted in four positions back at 3.98 and 206.57 mph with his familiar twin-turboed ’68 Nova, while Mo Hall and his nitrous-huffing ’07 Corvette took the top spot at 3.73 seconds and 198.23 mph.
“On top of qualifying, that was one of our main goals coming here, to get me into the threes. I definitely would’ve been disappointed if it didn’t happen, but our real main goal is to win the race,” the younger Holder declared.
“What’s really crazy is when you go faster, it actually feels a little slower. I mean, it’s not really slower obviously, but just with how smooth it goes it feels more comfortable. We’ve been struggling with popping wheelies the last few passes, but with that one it just went so smooth that it didn’t even feel that fast. I mean, it still gets you back in the seat, but it was a lot less dramatic, less chaotic.”
For round one of eliminations, Holder will face off against 13th-place qualifier Justin Swanstrom while his dad will take on ninth-place starter Shawn Ayers. Regardless, Holder is now focused on going rounds.
“And from what it’s looking like on the computer, I think it’s even possible. We have a lot left in it. I’m pretty sure we could go in the bottom 3.80s, maybe even high 3.70s,” he said. “So if we can get there, I think we’ll be pretty good for the competition.”
Once eliminations began, Holder made it past Swanstrom, but fell to Heath Littrell in round two after his Nova lost traction and he had to shut it down about half track.
“There was oil on the track and it was there for the run before me, too, because that guy about wrecked, too. I know they looked at the track before we ran, but I just don’t understand how something like oil gets missed. It was like hitting ice when I got there,” a clearly agitated Holder said later.
“And I was going to win that round, too. There’s no way he (Littrell) was going to catch me.”
“We’ve always wanted the car to look as stock as possible, but it came at the cost of added weight. So we struggled with it and tried different things, but the biggest change we’ve made is being able to use the turbo as ballast. We moved the turbo on the driver’s side all the way in front of the tire, and that allowed us to use that weight plus the down force and not have to use ballast for when the track is really good and to keep the car from pulling wheelies.
“Jamie Miller was the one to suggest it,” Youmans said. “He’s one of the Proline tuners–he is the Red Hat Mafia. He said he’d always wanted to try it, but never had anybody willing. But we were a struggling cause and I’ve always felt like in drag racing you have to think outside the box, you know?”
Youmans and his McIntyre, GA-based team spent a week in the shop early this year tearing the left side turbo setup apart and rebuilding all tubing and headers to move it forward.
“It really wasn’t that difficult, but I have an incredible, incredible chassis guy, Todd Dobson with Mod Rods Race Cars in Macon, Georgia. He is just an awesome guy who works extremely hard and he just jumped through hoops to make it happen.”
Additionally, Youmans credits Marty Merillat in Archbold, OH, for creating “some exquisite four-link brackets.”
“Marty’s brackets are so unique that they’re able to allow us to move our four-link bars in eighth-of-an-inch increments. Before it was more like half-an-inch at a time, so we can really tweak it and dial it in now. Our shock graphs have never looked as good as they’ve looked this week,” Youmans said.
After qualifying eighth at Lights Out 13 with a 3.82 pass at 210.57 mph, Yeomans bowed out in round one of eliminations mid-afternoon on Saturday.
“It took off pretty good and I never did see him (Craven Moore) beside me, but then about halfway down where the tractor stopped dragging the track, the tires just broke loose so I got out of it. You can’t get back into it with these radials like you can with the big tires,” Youmans explained.
He also confirmed he’ll be sticking around South Georgia Motorsports Park through Monday, when slicks and wheelie bars will be strapped on the bright orange Goat for testing in preparation for entering Pro Street at the PDRA season opener in April.
Ervin and his nitrous-fed ’88 Chevy S10 ran 4.510 seconds at 155.38 mph to lead 39 entries vying for a spot in the 32-car field.
“I was really happy,” he said of setting the Ultra record. “At the end of the run I looked up at the scoreboard and in all my excitement I forgot to pull the parachute, forgot to hit the brakes, I was just sitting there hollering. For a minute there, I thought we might almost try out the sandpit.
“And it’s on leaf springs still,” Ervin proudly added. “Got a big-block 588 on nitrous, heads by Bishoff and the bottom end by Guy Manson. And Dave Hanlon, he’s been tuning it from his couch. Really, he ain’t touched the truck in eight months. He just goes by pictures and datalogs and does a great job. It’s really consistent.”
Lee thundered to the top spot in Friday’s final qualifying session by running a 3.574 elapsed time at 207.18 miles per hour to complete his clean sweep of qualifying. He improved in three of the four sessions.
His biggest challenge is not in running quicker but backing down the combination enough to get down the track in much warmer conditions than he’s produced his best runs.
“We ain’t got a damn clue [how to back it down],” Lee admitted. “We’ve been trying to go fast the whole time we’ve been here. We got some data testing to slow it down, so we’ll refer back to that. So tomorrow, probably going to A to B is going to be the bigger challenge than it was going even better number one.
“When you spend all weekend trying to go fast, it’s very hard to tame it down. So luckily, we do have a lot of test data that was with a different motor, so there’s some variables that could change, but we do have some information that hopefully is enough to put us in a secure position where we can go down and run a high .50 or something like that first round no matter who we have and just keep plugging away as time goes on.”
Lee will get a first-round bye run to sort it out since there are 26 entries for the 32-car field.
Hall thundered to a 3.738, 198.23 in his Gene Fulton-powered Corvette.
“It just worked out that way,’ Hall said.
Duck X races don’t follow the traditional better qualifying position runs at the back of the session procedure. It is first-come, first-served.
“Top Fuel cars have traction built in their tire,” Hall said. “We build our traction based on the racetrack. So we’re kind of limited by conditions and what we’re giving in so much horsepower, on such a little tire. It makes a bigger, difference in this class, with these conditions.”
Saturday’s eliminations will likely be run in mid-70 degree weather, much warmer than Thursday and Friday’s sessions.
“I don’t think you back it down,” Hall said. “I think it’s just like every round you go off of what the racetrack will give you. Brandon [Switzer, tuner] does a really good job of making sure it’s what we can run. If the track’s going to give us a .80, we’ll run a 80. If it’ll give us a 70, we’ll run a 70. We go off the conditions and not back it down so much as just, play with what you got.”
Other low qualifiers include Rob Goss (X275), Wes Ervin (Ultra Street), Jason Riley (Limited Drag Radial), Jason Riley (Limited 235), Bill Kubiac (DXP Street).
“This is my very first car,” Rueckert proudly states of the twin-turboed ’82 Cutlass he’s wheeling this weekend in Limited Drag Radial at Lights Out 13. “My dad got it for me 31 years ago, when I was 16 years old. It was just a stock V-6 car back then, but it’s gradually evolved.”
Growing up in tiny Brooklyn, MI, practically in the shadows of the NASCAR superspeedway there, Rueckert remembers driving the Cutlass all through his high school years and experiencing many ‘firsts’ in it before eventually burning the original six-banger to the ground.
“I really didn’t know anything in high school, but I had a good friend, George Walt, he knew how to change engines, so I was like, ‘Man, can you help me out?’ and we put a 350 in the car. And that kind of started the whole drag racing thing for me. I went to Milan Dragway with it in 1993, ran a 16.60 quarter mile, and I was hooked.
“It eventually had big blocks in it and I bracket raced a lot back then and eventually got all the way down to 6.50s. Then I switched to a Procharger in 2000 and in ’04 I started heads-up racing with OSCA out of Kentucky,” he continues. “Then I went to a bigger Procharger and ran Outlaw Drag Radial until switching in 2014 to twin turbos.”
Now based on a 25.3 certified chassis by Pro Tree Racecars in Markleville, IN, Reuckert’s ride maintains stock suspension with all-TRZ components and carries a 555 cubic-inch, Bischoff-built, Energy Manufacturing big-block Chevy outfitted with a pair of 88-millimeter Precision NextGen turbos. He adds, though, the car retains its factory dash and as much original stock interior as possible to maintain its street-car look and credibility in Limited Drag Radial.
“You know, I remember when I was a freshman at Michigan State and putting my first Pioneer CD player in,” Rueckert says. “But back then CD players skipped really bad, so in the dashboard I put an empty oil bottle wrapped in rags and that’s what the CD player sat on so when the car hit a bump in the road, the CD would maybe not skip.
“I think about this kind of stuff all the time. I get in there and I just look at the car and just think, ‘Holy moly, 31 years of my life, you know? I mean, it’s all here.’ And that’s why I just can’t ever get rid of it.”
A flat-black wrap over dented fenders, then covered by humorous stickers and handwritten notes gives the nitrous-huffing ’65 Nova a decided outlaw vibe, but it’s the devilish baby doll adhered to the rear decklid that makes it most memorable.
“I found that doll in a Halloween store a couple of years ago. I got it after I learned my girlfriend was pregnant, so I just stuck it on,” Wren says, though he freely admits he found the gesture much more entertaining than she did. “No, we’re not together anymore,” he adds.
He also recognizes some people love the car’s overall appearance and some hate it–but practically everyone remembers it and that’s the real benefit.
“It’s actually perfect for grudge racing, which is what I’ve mostly done with it so far,” Wren says. “But this year we’re going to go class racing and run for points in Duck’s new series. We’re gonna’ try and beat up on these guys.”
THURSDAY – MO HALL DOES WHAT MO HALL DOES AT SGMP; LEE UPS THE ANTE IN RVW
Mo Hall, a leading Pro 275 drag radial racer, has dominated the competition at South Georgia Motorsports Park.
In his first run of the weekend in Thursday’s lone Pro 275 session, Hall drove his Fulton Competition-powered Corvette to the top spot with a 3.740 elapsed time at 198.88 miles per hour.
“I don’t know about dominated,” Hall said. “We got lucky one night. Air’s in our favor. Brandon’s [Switzer] just doing a good job, so we’ll take it for tonight.
Last fall at South Georgia Motorsports Park, Hall used qualifying domination to create a dominant race day domination. Is it familiarity with the track? Or just good records?
“We don’t have a lot of data,” Hall admitted. “We’ve had radial tires on our cars for only three years, so we don’t have a ton of data. We just try to be smart with what we’re doing. We don’t try to swing for anything that’s unrealistic. We just try to make realistic runs, and we get lucky.
“We’ve been fortunate the last two years and had really good conditions for a nitrous car. So, I think that’s about the gist of it.”
“I think we left a little bit on the table down low, but outside of that, I think all I was going to do is keep trying to improve every round and see where we end up because everybody else is going to do the same,” Lee said.
While many of the usual Radial vs. The World heavy-hitters were elsewhere this weekend, Lee says the mainstay guys are coming to the top.
“We’ve been doing this for quite a while,” Lee said. “Some of the big name guys aren’t here unfortunately but we really want to support this because racing on Radials is awesome, going fast is awesome and you it’s a good event. Donald does a good job and the payouts are great so we’re just trying to support it and hopefully, a lot of those guys will come back.”
What’s it going to take to make Lee a superstar in the division?
“We’ve got to win the race,” Lee surmised.
Other provisional low qualifiers included Rob Goss (X275), Tim Kincaid (Limited Drag Radial), Wes Evrin (Ultra Street) and Jason Riley (Limited 235).
WEDNESDAY – LEE, BUGINGA SET THE EARLY PACE FOR LIGHTS OUT 13
Credit a successful test at Orlando Speed World ahead of the event for the impetus of his success.
“We just made small changes and to keep improving,” Lee explained. “But as the air gets better, we’re definitely going to look to go a lot faster. We tested last week, and we’re just duplicating what we’ve already done in testing.
According to Lee, the first run in Valdosta was a carbon copy of what he accomplished in Orlando.
“We went to Orlando to test prior to this event and we pretty much just laid down exactly what we did there, here first round,” Lee explains. “So just like I said, baby steps. We kind of see what everybody else is doing and then just kind of get a feel for what the air is. I mean, if the air’s not there, there’s no sense trying to go faster because we won’t be able to do it. But if the air comes around, we’re going to go ahead and see what we can do.”
If the air is there for Thursday’s session, Lee intends to turn up the wick.
“If the air gets much better, our run won’t stick,” Lee said. “If the air stays about the same, I believe it may stand.”
Though Buginga’s opening salvo was impressive, he’s not getting excited yet.
“It’s still early, this first round; there’s 15,000 other rounds to come,” Buginga said. “There’s a lot of high-caliber cars, but we have a great bunch of guys with us.”
Buginga has used his familiarity with SGMP as a baseline for repeat performances.
“I think all of that, all the times that we’ve had, winning No Mercy, so we have a lot of intel on this track, but again, it’s just a great team that we have,” Buginga added.
Other provisional low qualifiers included Rob Goss (X275), Neil Hawkins (Limited Drag Radial), and Jason Riley (Limited 235).