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THURSDAY NOTEBOOK: IT’S OCTOBER AND TIME FOR FAST DOORSLAMMERS IN ORLANDO
IT’S CARL’S WORLD – Orlando.
For so, so many fast doorslammer racers, that single word carries as much weight and magic as Daytona or Indianapolis does to their roundy-round and open-wheeled brethren. Winning the Real World Street Nationals at Orlando Speed World Dragway provides demonstrable proof of having beaten the very best. It offers life-long bragging rights and quite easily can make up for a long season of late-night garage sessions and time spent on the road, busted knuckles, broken dreams, or blown engines and bank accounts.
Orlando can offer redemption to those that need it and validation to those that don’t.
And it all goes down again this weekend (Oct. 29-31), as track operator and race promoter Carl Weisinger, 65, plays host to tens of thousands of fans and race teams from all over the U.S. (and even a few foreigners) competing in five heads-up doorslammer classes in the 18th annual running of one of the greatest stand-alone drag racing events in the world.
“It seems like yesterday that we did the first one,” Weisinger recalls. “You know, we only had 43 cars at that first one and about 1,100 people, but you could sense the magic even back then and you can still feel it today.”
Weisinger says several factors contribute to his event’s long-term success and continued popularity, such as a payout that goes to every one of the qualifiers in each class, the opportunity to compare against the best racers of their type anywhere, wild on-track action, and the autumnal attraction of central Florida and its many tourist destinations to much of the rest of the country.
But above all else, he believes it’s because it’s fun.
“I know from my own personal experience, if I go to a race track and have fun I want to go back. Even if I lost in the first round or didn’t qualify or blew the motor, it didn’t matter as long as I had a good time overall because that’s what it’s really about out here, enjoying our recreation of choice.
“And I know it’s become an annual ritual for many of our fans and competitors,” he adds. “It’s almost as much a reunion each year as it is a race.”
By Thursday evening, racers in the Real World Street Nationals’ traditional offerings of Super Pro Street, Outlaw 10.5, Heavy Street and Pro Drag Radial will be jamming the pits alongside those of Weisinger’s latest official addition, the Extreme Import class. With no minimum weight, an appearance rule requiring Sport Compact-type bodies (including small pick-ups) and practically everything else wide open other than dictating entries carry either a four-cylinder, inline-six-cylinder or two- or three-rotor engine, the Extreme Import division smacks of ADRL influence.
In fact, Weisinger says he gave ADRL president and founder Kenny Nowling a quick courtesy call last year prior to the new class performing on an exhibition level with just eight cars.
“He didn’t own the name or have any kind of claim to it, but I wouldn’t have wanted him to show up in a couple of years (with the same name for a class) and find out we are already using the name,” Weisinger explains. “But he said at this point they don’t have any intention of running any Import cars.”
Weisinger expects a 16-car Extreme Import field this time around and says the level of preparation and condition of the cars last October, combined with positive crowd response, are what convinced him the class is a worthy addition to the Real World Street Nationals show.
“The cars are very impressive; they’re as well built and just as nice as almost any Pro Mod out there,” he says. “A lot of them are back-halved or three-quarter cars, but a few are all-out, throw-down, ready-to-go-to-war, full-tube-chassis pieces. It was kind of funny, though, because the crowd started going to the snack bar and bathrooms when they came up to run at first, but when those guys ripped off a couple of 7.20s the fans came back to the fences in a rush.
“It appears we should have 18 to 20 of them this year,” Weisinger says. “We’ll just have to wait and see, but we’re willing to nurse them along.”
Weisinger also puts to rest any notion that the 18th annual could be the final running of the Real World Street Nationals, despite his own advertising flyers suggesting as much just a month or so earlier. He explains as a lease holder at the quarter-mile facility he’s sometimes faced with “little issues” that other track operators may not have to deal with.
“But we were able to address that with the property owner and thank goodness for now it’s full steam ahead,” he says. “So as it is right now we’ve got the next five years on our lease and that’s the same as I started with here 24 years ago.”
Which is good news for doorslammer racers and fans who enjoy having somewhere to visit and call their own each October.
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WEDNESDAY NOTEBOOK: LOOKING BACK TO LAST SEASON
SUPER PRO STREET
Winner: Coby Rabon – 6.273 seconds, 234.21 mph
Runner-up: Mike Hill – 6.365 seconds, 233.17 mph
No. 1 qualifier: Coby Rabon – 6.269 seconds, 235.31 mph
Low E.T.: Coby Rabon – 6.235 seconds
Top Speed: Coby Rabon – 237.92 mph
RABON’S DECISION TO RETURN TO RACING PAYS OFF
Coby Rabon tried to turn his back on drag racing. And he was pretty successful at it — for a couple of years.
But what once had sapped all of his energy has re-invigorated the quietly determined man from Ridgeway, S.C.
Rabon’s plan to approach the sport at a sensible pace and with leaders in the industry paid off in a major way Sunday at the World Street Nationals. He earned not only the $10,000 winner’s share of the Super Pro Street purse but an extra $1,000 and trophy as No. 1 qualifier, as well as another grand and a third trophy as the “Clean Sweep Award” recipient. The honor goes to the driver who wins from the top spot and posts low elapsed time of the meet.
The crowd at Orlando Speed World Dragway got a thrill Friday morning, when Rabon sent a message to the rest of the class with a 6.269-second elapsed time (at 235.31 mph) in his ’05 Mustang that held up through fives sessions for the top qualifying position.
“That first pass was awesome. I knew then that we had something,” Rabon said. “With that pass, we knew we were going in the right direction. I felt like if we could just get down the track that we would stay No. 1 the whole time.”
His hunch was right. But Rabon treated fans to more thrills Sunday, opening his march to victory by setting both ends of the track record with a 6.235-second pass at 237.92 mph against Greg Denis. The fast Ford with the 67-cubic-inch Steve Petty-engineered Pro-line power plant made consistent 6.2/6.3-second runs all during eliminations before Rabon denied Mike “Hitman” Hill a second consecutive WSN title in the final round. Rabon capped his weekend with a 6.273/234.21 effort to Hill’s 6.365 / 223.17.
Rabon also advanced past experienced Super Pro Street drivers Tony “The Sandman” Williams, Steve King, and Tony Christian. (Hill, who took home $4,000, drove past Mike Moran, Mike Stavrinos, Doug Horween, and Chris Rini to reach the final in his ’07 Pontiac GTO.)
“It was nine rounds here, and we were low E.T. seven rounds,” Rabon said. Then with a grin that suggested he might just continue to vex his competitors for some time, he said of the car, “It’s got potential.”
What makes Rabon’s domination even more remarkable is the fact he was making his on-track debut at this race.
“This is the first time we’ve been to Orlando. This is the first time we’ve rolled in the gate,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
The well-worn racing surface always is prepared to its optimum. Nevertheless, it was “green” because of a brief shower Friday morning and no real pre-race activity, save a Thursday night golf-cart drag race, to lay down any rubber.
“This track is a challenge,” Rabon said. So was the entire weekend for the man who knows first-hand now why a trophy from the World Street Nationals is so valuable.
“We broke a tranny one round. It hasn’t been easy. We took the tranny out three times this weekend. Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of work, but we had fun,” Rabon said. “It was worth it.”
Was drag racing “worth it” to Rabon? For awhile it was — then it wasn’t — and once again it has become a passion. So what happened to Rabon? Why did he leave the sport for two years?
“We had an Outlaw car. We ran it for a year or two,” he said. “We tried to go somewhere every weekend. We burned our bearings out. We got tired of it. I got totally out of it. I went to a couple of racetracks about a year ago, and the bug bit me again. So here we are again.”
And how did Steve Petty get involved?
“I already had a turbo car, so turbos were on the top of the list. I went to Pro-line, struck a deal, and here we are,” Rabon said.
Ah, but it wasn’t that easy, really. After all, a lot of outlaw/street-legal drivers would love to have Steve Petty’s attention.
“I went to him and I said, ‘Look, I want you to be a part of this. Y’all know what I want to do. So let’s do it together.’ I’m loyal. I told ’em, ‘I need your help,’ and they gave it to me. It took a little bit of talking and when they finally realized I was serious, everybody came together. It didn’t take long, about a month.”
This young business relationship — Rabon owns and operates the car, while Petty orchestrates the tuning — seems to be working splendidly.
“Steve’s a character. He’s a big part of what we’re doing right now. Steve’s everything to us right now,” Rabon said. “He really helps us. He does whatever he can. We try to help how we can.
“He does all our tune-ups. He’s the brains behind it. He’s the brains of the operation on the computer. He comes in there and mashes a couple of buttons, and I just watch and try to keep up.” Said Rabon, “We’re still learning.”
That’s all reassuring to Rabon — but not to the rest of the Super Pro Street drivers.
MICKEY THOMPSON OUTLAW 10.5
Winner: Chuck Ulsch – 6.522 seconds, 223.99 mph
Runner-up: Tim Lynch – 16.587 seconds, 47.51 mph
No. 1 qualifier: Chuck Ulsch – 6.450 seconds, 224.62 mph
Low E.T.: Chuck Ulsch – 6.450 seconds
Top Speed: Tim Lynch – 232.31 mph
ULSCH NABS ORLANDO VICTORY — WITH HELP FROM JOHN DILLINGER
Everybody’s heard of John Dillinger.
But how many could identify his accomplices? Let’s see . . . James Ward, Richard Mauzy, Jeff Weddle, Cody Ulsch, Brian Mobley . . . Oh, and special gang members Brian Weddle, Mike Weddle, J.C. Gloyd, Jim Gloyd, Drew Smith, and Robbie Long.
Nah — we’re not talking about the notorious gangster John Dillinger. This is John “Pops” Dillinger. The others were key witnesses and collaborators Sunday as show-stealer Chuck Ulsch stormed into Orlando Speed World Dragway, roughed up the Mickey Thompson Outlaw 10.5 class with a World Street Nationals victory, and made off with more than $10,000.
Ulsch, who has made Gil Mobley Motorsports’ ’02 Camaro just about the Most Wanted ride in street-legal racing, swiped top-qualifier honors, as well, with a 6.450-second elapsed time at 224.62 mph. That stuffed another $1,000 in his pocket. Ulsch raked in an additional $1,000 for the “Celan Sweep Award,” for he also set low E.T. with his qualifying time.
But grabbing all the loot was no breeze for the Clarksville, Md., legend. Part of his concerns were the Lynch Mob — rival Tim Lynch and his team, who faced him in the final. Although Ulsch ran a stout 6.522-second pass at 223.99, Lynch lost power early and never was a threat in the quarter-mile showdown. His cut of the purse was $3,000, some consolation for his 16.587-second, 47.51-mph showing.
“We really worked this weekend. It was a battle,” Ulsch said after winning at Orlando for the first time in three final-round appearances. “We did one good pass on Friday night. Everything looked good on the car. Once we came up there Saturday morning, we had the right lane, kind of didn’t get down, came back and they made us take the right lane — we didn’t get down. We wanted the left lane. Then we had a problem — our CO2 bottle went empty and we didn’t get down. (Sunday) we pretty much backed it down, just to get down (the track). We had an issue — fuel burned the piston up in the first round. We had to put a piston in it after second round, and we had the blower off every round.
“All these guys, everybody who’s on my crew — there’s about 10 or 12 of us — every single person did something to get us in that winners circle, whether it became cleaning oil off the back, packing the chutes, helping put the cylinder head on, putting a piston in, going to get parts, whatever,” Ulsch said. “We battled. We battled. And we got it done. Every time, we had a reasonable amount of time to get the job done.”
He said the 32-car ladder played out the way he had expected.
“The four fastest cars were in the semis,” he said. Because of that, he knew he needed to keep lane choice each round. “The left lane’s a good lane here. So we were shooting to have that left lane all day. Once we got back on track, we pretty much set the pace for ourselves.”
After losing to Bill Futch in last year’s final, Ulsch might have wondered if his string of poor luck would continue. “We’ve always had to fight for it here, because we’ve always had problems. We’ve never had an easy day where we can just put the plugs in it and make sure everything’s tightened up, make a pass and be done. It’s always been a fight. But it makes it good. It makes it real rewarding when you win,” he said.
“I didn’t do this myself,” Ulsch said. “I’m the one who gets to drive it down the track. I’m the one who gets to do this right here (speak with reporters), talk to the people. I just want to make sure I tell everybody that John Ferguson and Gil Mobley Sr. and Gil Mobley Jr. own this car. They’re the ones who put me in here.”
Referring to the newly crowned ADRL Battle of the Belts champion Todd Tutterow, he said, “Todd Tutterow tunes this car.”
Although Ulsch certainly is aware of Lynch’s capabilities, he wasn’t overly focused on his opponent in the final. “We were doing our own thing, just make sure we got that lane choice, make sure we got all our Ts crossed and our Is dotted, and do what we had to do. If he could come up and beat us, I’d have dealt with it. You put what you have up on the table. If you win, you win. If you lose, you lose.”
Ulsch explained his domination by saying, “We have good people and good equipment, and we have a pretty good work ethic. Everybody loves it. We don’t do this for money. This is a hobby. It’s not a business. Sometimes people think everybody on this teams gets paid for what we do. We do it for the love of this.
“We want to win. We want to prove that we can run with the best of them. We want to be the best of them. We want them to want to run with us,” he said.
After raiding the World Street Nationals, Ulsch and the Mobley Militia are about the most feared hombres in outlaw drag racing.
MICKEY THOMPSON DRAG RADIAL
Winner: Dave Hance – 7.249 seconds, 206.13 mph
Runner-up: Mel Nelson – No time
No. 1 qualifier: Dave Hance – 7.436 seconds, 201.13 mph
Low E.T.: Dave Hance – 7.249 seconds
Top Speed: Alex Vrettos – 213.91 mph
PEANUT BUTTER, JELLY SHARE GLORY AS HANCE TASTES VICTORY
Lined up on the roof of Dave Hance’s fancy black ’93 Mustang were three World Street Nationals trophies.
One was for being the $3,000 Mickey Thompson Drag Radial class winner — and recipient of a championship jacket that will make him the envy of racers and fans and his friends in his Long Island neighborhood of Inwood, N.Y.
Another was for the “Clean Sweep Award” — along with a $1,000 bonus — he earned for being the winner, No. 1 qualifier, and driver to set low elapsed time at the 17th annual door slammer extravaganza at Orlando Speed World Dragway.
The third trophy was for leading the field with the 7.346-second pass Hance used to nudge Mel Nelson (his eventual final-round opponent) from the No. 1 spot in a last-minute fifth qualifying session.
(“They tell me we get bonus money! And more trophies!” Hance said, his boyish enthusiasm leaping out.)
Those three trophies made sense. But Hance plopped three more items on the roof. They didn’t make sense — unless you know Dave Hance and how far he has come in his racing career. What’s sitting on the roof of the racecar, as much a part of the winners circle as the trophies, the trophy girls, and the lined-up crew, were a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and a loaf of bread. What in the world. . . ?
“Back in the old days, 20 years ago or so, when all of us had no money,” crew member Scotty Guadagno said, “we were racing low-budget cars, that’s all we had to live on. And believe me, that’s what we lived on every day. You went to Dave’s apartment, all you would find in the cabinet and the refrigerator was peanut butter and jelly and some white bread. That’s it. That’s all we had. That’s why he brings it with him everywhere he goes. Oh, he eats it now — when you go in his trailer, that’s all you see: peanut butter and jelly. Believe me when I tell you — it’s true.”
Hance defended himself: “That was quick! That was cheap!”
He was quick Sunday, but his performance wasn’t cheap. He plowed through the field, eliminating Floridians Kirk Hatley, Ari Birchfield, and Angelo Graham, then Steve Turley, before surviving in the final with a swift, clean 7.29-second, 206.13 pass while Nelson took a frighteningly wild ride and ended up crossing into Hance’s lane behind him and keeping his own ’02 Camaro off the wall.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his car flinch,” Hance said. “But that County Auto Mustang was really going, so I had to keep my eyes on it. We were floating the wheels a little bit ourselves. He said he shook. We both turned it up. We both knew we wanted to rock and roll.”
The victory, the near-catastrophe at the top end of the final run, just finally getting he car dialed in — it all seemed a bit hard for Hance to believe . . . except for his comfort food sitting there to remind him of struggling and overcoming. He said he certainly did not think that this would be a winning weekend.
“I was a bit disappointed,” he said. “The whole weekend we couldn’t get down (the track). It was constantly finding, finding, finding. After that fourth qualifying session, which was supposed to be the last, I got down far enough that I knew what I had to do. So when they said, ‘You’ve got an extra one,’ we went out there and it did what I was hoping it would do.
“The real credit goes to the crew; Randy Connor, our crew chief; Don Bailey, our tuner (who does the same job for ADRL driver Spiro Pappas),” he said. “It’s really them. They gave me an awesome car. I just jumped in and had to let it go.”
Said Hance, “Hats off to Orlando for giving the fans an extra round, and a good round it was in all classes. What can you say? We’re tickled.”
He morphed from an animated race winner to a promoter in a subtle second. But that’s what Dave Hance is: part promoter, part racer. He’s the architect of a Northeast outlaw race at Englishtown, N.J.’s Old Bridge Township Raceway Park that started 10 years after these World Street Nationals but has become a must-enter fall free-for-all.
Hance dances around established dates to make choices easier for the racer — after all, he has competed in the World Street Nationals since 2001 with a variety of his own cars. And many of these drivers at Orlando — including winners Chuck Ulsch (Outlaw 10.5), Gary Naughton (Heavy Street), and Coby Rabon (Super Pro Street) — plan to hail their cars to New Jersey for the rain-rescheduled Shakedown at E-Town this coming weekend.
Hance might be a whiz at slapping together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but take a tip from Guadgano: Say no thank-you if Hance offers you spaghetti. The old tale goes that Hance’s racing buddies found a bowl of spaghetti that had been left in the refrigerator so long it was sprouting mold. “That must be broccoli or something,” Hance told them. (He confessed to the fib, saying, “I tried to play it off.”)
This World Street Nationals victory wasn’t Hance’s first race triumph, by any means. The peanut butter and jelly, while still a legitimate lunch for Hance, simply serves as a reminder of how much he has progressed. But it paid enough to shelve the peanut butter and jelly, maybe at least for one night, so he and his team can enjoy a steak dinner.
HEAVY STREET
Winner: Gary Naughton – 7.098 seconds, 206.13 mph
Runner-up: Sam Gottier – 7.179 seconds, 193.71 mph
No. 1 qualifier: Gary Naughton – 7.092 seconds, 206.07 mph
Low E.T.: Gary Naughton – 7.092 seconds
Top Speed: Gary Naughton – 207.56 mph
NAUGHTON’S HEAVY STREET TRIUMPH IS ‘OKIE-DOAK’
Gary Naughton accomplished a feat Sunday that’s known in drag racing as “running the table.”
It means a driver captures just about every performance achievement possible at a single event by winning, earning the No. 1 qualifying position, and setting low elapsed time and top speed.
Naughton did all that in ADRL Extreme 10.5 class driver and business partner Kenny Doak’s ’67 Camaro, pocketing $5,000 for the victory and $1,000 bonus for the “Clean Sweep Award.”
That he did so at the World Street Nationals was something that in an emotional moment in the winners circle afterward he called “a dream come true.”
He came close to the prize last year, but a mechanical glitch doomed his chance.
“Kenny qualified first last year. I think I qualified fourth last year,” Naughton said. “The transmission popped out of gear in the semis last year. It was a bit of a heartbreaker. So I redeemed myself this year.
“It’s five rounds of racing, the only 32-car race field in the country. Ah, it’s just amazing,” he said, trying to soak it all in the gathering darkness at Orlando Speed World Dragway. People asked for his autograph on T-shirts. A lineup of professional photographers and three times as many folks with recreational-grade cameras wanted him to smile and pose with his crew by the car, holding his trophy. A reporter or two probed into his background, asking him the “how it feels” questions.
“This is a dream come true. I still can’t believe it,” he said.
Finally things were coming together the way he had dreamed about it when he was building race cars for other drivers who drove them to big-race victories and a measure of fame, at least in the drag-racing world.
Naughton has been racing since he was 16 years old, for almost 29 years, he said. Most recently, he said, he competed in local Quick-8 racing at Atco Raceway in South Jersey and Cecil County Dragway in Maryland, neither far from his home in Eastern Pennsylvania.
“I’ve been building and racing cars forever. But I never could do it at the level I am now, if it wasn’t for Kenny Doak giving me the ride in his car,” he said. “I can’t say enough for Kenny Doak and Billy from Oddy’s — the motor is just unbelievable . . . Coan Converters, Bruno Lenco . . .
He said he and Doak “just started a race car shop of our own, Advanced Door Car Technology. We’re an up-and-going race car shop.
“He has a state-of-the-art machine shop, does a lot of medical work. Kenny really set me up, bought me every piece of equipment I need to build race cars,” Naughton said.
At that point the humble Naughton allowed himself a smile. But the smile wasn’t just for himself and his own team, although they did advance past Omar Obando, reached the quarterfinals on a bye, then beat Lee Saunders and Ronnie Souza to make the final for the first time.
As his car was lined up next to those of fellow winners Dave Hance (Drag Radial) and Chuck Ulsch (Outlaw 10.5), he glanced over at Ulsch’s ’02 Camaro with pride.
“I was the shop foreman at Vanishing Point Race Cars until about six months ago. I built Chuckie’s car,” Naughton said. So in one sense, he was a double winner. The victories just kept mounting for him.
For Naughton, Sunday was a day of 3Rs — no rest, for sure, but certainly running the table, redemption, and rejoicing.
EXTREME IMPORT
Winner: Ken Scheepers – 7.761 seconds, 179.33 mph
Runner-up: Raul Reyes Buozo – 7.135 seconds, 191.19 mph
No. 1 qualifier: Alex Dieguez – 7.161 seconds, 193.27 mph
Low E.T. : Raul Reyes Buozo – 7.135 seconds
Top Speed: Luis Ferrer Jr., 195.34 mph
Ken Sheepers, of Flower Mound, Texas, drove his ’05 Mazda RX8 to a 7.761-second, 179.33-mph victory over Bayamon, Puerto Rico’s Raul Reyes Buozo, who red-lit in the final. Track operator Carl Weisinger gave the Extreme Import drivers one shot each in the cooler conditions at making a six-second pass following the scheduled program. None hit the mark. But the last in line, Luis Ferrer Jr., of West Palm Beach, hit the wall. He was not hurt.
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