2011 ADRL DALLAS - EVENT NOTEBOOK
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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK - AND THE SEASON IS FINISHED ...
SEE YA NEXT SEASON - The 2011 ADRL season did not start well for 2007-08 back-to-back Pro Extreme World Champion Jason Scruggs as he struggled to find the right combination for a new converter-driven transmission. It certainly ended on a positive note, however, as the Saltillo, Mississippi, cotton farmer earned a runner-up finish and two wins in the year’s final four events, including the season-ending LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment Oct. 21-23, at the Texas Motorplex, near Dallas.
“I’ve always said, when you’re doing as bad as we were doing, it’s not hard to get better,” Scruggs said onstage at the ADRL’s annual racer appreciation gala and awards show following the on-track event.
Scruggs qualified his Garret Race Cars ’63 Corvette second for the World Finals with a career-best 3.590 pass at 208.07 mph behind only Frankie Taylor, who tied his own ET record with a 3.581 at 211.36 mph that came close to resetting the ADRL’s all-time speed mark, too. Scruggs was followed by Joey Martin, new PX champ Jason Hamstra and Todd Tutterow, who won the ADRL’s unique Quick 8 Battle for the Belts on Saturday night.
It was the quickest ever Pro Extreme field in ADRL history, with Michael Recchia’s 3.729 at 199.70 holding down the 16th and final qualifying position.
“We had a good car all weekend. So did Tutterow in the Battle for the Belts,” Scruggs acknowledged after going red in the Belts semis against a traction-challenged Alex Hossler. “The driver screwed up there and I felt bad for my crew. Todd was running good, but I think we had something for him there.”
On Sunday, race day, Scruggs opened with a 3.640 at 206.23 come-from-behind win over Todd Martin and his ’68 Mustang, then ran an unopposed 3.631 at 206.29 when Brandon Snider’s ’63 Vette broke on the starting line.
In the semis, Scruggs again made a single pass of 3.641 at 205.60 when Mike Janis had trouble with his ’70 Duster, while Taylor earned lane choice for the final round with a quicker and faster 3.636 at 209.59 pass in beating Hamstra in another ’70 Duster.
“I knew Frankie (Taylor) would be coming for us, so we turned it up a little for the final and I’m glad we did,” Scruggs said after leading from start to finish with a .017 holeshot that led to a 3.604-seconds winning run at 208.59 mph compared to Taylor’s 3.719 at an off-the-gas 178.07 mph.
“Whew! That got way out of shape there at the end,” Taylor said of his 2005 Corvette sashaying its way through the second half of his run. “I thought I was going to catch him there for a second, but ol’ Jason there, he’s just too good.”
Scruggs was just relieved his year didn’t end the way it started.
“It’s a great way to end the year,” he said in victory lane. “I'd be the first to tell you, you're only as good as your last pass, so this lets me go out a winner this year and I’ve got all winter to say I won."
THE ICEMAN ROLLETH - What can be said about Shannon “Iceman” Jenkins other than he’s a legend for a reason.
In only his second appearance behind the wheel this year at the season-ending LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment, the Iceman coolly qualified in the number-two position and raced to a final-round win over number-one starter Burton Auxier.
Driving in substitution for regular driver and newly named ADRL Rookie of the Year Mahana Al-Naemi, who remained at home in Qatar with his ailing father, Jenkins ran his Al-Anabi Racing ’68 Camaro to a 3.781-seconds qualifying lap at 196.16 mph to place just one-thousandth of a second behind Auxier.
Rounding out the top five in what almost became the quickest Pro Nitrous field in history (the top 15 were by far the quickest ever assembled, but number-16 Pat Stoken was never able to make a representative pass), were Rickie Jones with a career-best 3.788, 2009 series champ Khalid Al-Balooshi and home-state hero Doug Riesterer from Victoria, Texas.
Jenkins gave up a little at the start to John Hall in round one of racing, but made up for it with a 3.810 pass at 195.48 mph to advance. He next ran 3.825 at 193.96 in beating Jim Laurita to reach the semis against Rickie Jones, whom Jenkins beat in the final in his first driving appearance this year, back in February at the Shakedown South in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Jones drilled Jenkins on the tree, .006 to .061, but that’s about as far as the Pro Nitrous rookie’s good fortune would last. His Quarter-Max ’69 Camaro made a hard right turn from the left lane and ended up spinning down track on its lid while Jenkins sailed to a 3.808 win at 194.74 mph.
“I did see a flash of blue (Jones’ color), but then he disappeared and I had no idea of what went on behind me,” Jenkins said later.
Fortunately, Jones was uninjured in the wreck and although his car didn’t appear to sustain any major damage, it will be thoroughly checked out at his family’s RJ Race Cars shop in Galesburg, Illinois.
On the opposite side of the ladder, Auxier made a first-round bye run when Stoken was a no-show, then raced his way through Stan Allen , who’s Bankston Boyz ’68 Camaro was named Best Appearing at the event, and Riesterer, who threw up a -.031 red light in the semis.
In the final round, Auxier left with a .011 advantage over Jenkins’ .045 light, but the 2010 class champion faded a little to 3.944 at 191.05 while Jenkins made his quickest run of eliminations at 3.800 and 194.35 mph.
When asked onstage during a post-race awards ceremony about how the decision was reached to put him back in the car despite a lengthy break from driving, Jenkins simply answered, “We had the car prepared, so I thought, why not?
“We brought the car out and it really went well,” he added. “We learned some things for next year, tried some things out and it all worked out very well. That’s about it.”
SCARY MOMENT - Rickie Jones turned his RJ Race Cars-built ’69 Camaro upside-down Oct. 23, in a Pro Nitrous semi-final faceoff against Shannon Jenkins in the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment.“I hate that this happened. I want to apologize to all my sponsors and especially my dad, Rick Jones, who does everything for me,” the 24-year-old driver said after emerging unscathed from the wreck that started a hundred feet or so down the left lane on the Texas Motorplex eighth mile.
The car lost traction, turned to the right and bicycled on its two left wheels before turning over as it crossed the centerline and bounced its nose off the right wall as Jenkins streaked unaware to the win in 3.808 seconds at 194.74 mph. Jones remained on his roof and did a couple of slow spins until sliding to a stop near the left wall just short of the quarter-mile point of the track.
“It was actually very calm in the car, no big hits,” Jones recalled. “Everything worked as it was supposed to, my helmet, the poured seat, safety belts, and I want to thank the guys back at RJ Race Cars for building me a safe car. It really did its job today.”
Jones admitted he was hyped up to be racing “The Iceman,” who was subbing this weekend for regular driver Mahana Al-Naemi, at home in Qatar with his ailing father.
“We were trying something there, throwing a little more power at it and it just didn’t stick,” Jones said. “I stayed with it too long; it’s my fault.”
Initial inspections of the car suggested it wasn’t too badly damaged, but Jones said they’ll take it back to their shop in Galesburg, Illinois, put it on the jig and make sure everything is up to code.
“We were having such a great weekend here and for this to happen at the last race of the year is very disappointing,” he said.
Jenkins went on to win the final over 2010 class champion Burton Auxier.
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - BIG MONEY HANDED OUT ON MAJOR CARNAGE DAY
KING TUT SERVES SECOND TERM - With a solo pass in the $25,000-to-win final, Todd Tutterow earned his second ADRL Pro Extreme Battle for the Belts title Saturday night during the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals presented by Summit Racing Equipment at the Texas Motorplex. 
Tutterow last won the Speedtech Battle for the Belts in 2009 when the Quick 8 format was used to determine the ADRL’s season-ending champions, but which continues now as a special race-within-a-race for the top eight points earners leading into the World Finals.
“I like the new points program because the guy that leads the points and chases it all year, he needs to be the champion,” Tutterow said. “But I’m really glad they decided to keep the Battle for the Belts, too, because I think it adds a lot of excitement and a nice bonus to the end of the year.”
Starting from the number-five slot, Tutterow took down defending class champion Frankie Taylor in a tight first-round match with a 3.637 pass at 210.08. He then ousted new 2011 champ Jason Hamstra with a 3.634-seconds pass at 210.41 mph in the semis to reach Alex Hossler in the Belts final.
On the opposite side of the ladder, sixth-place starter Hossler got by Mick Snyder with a solid 3.686-seconds effort at 196.93 in the opening round, but sustained significant transmission and engine damage in the process.
“The torque converter exploded right as I was crossing the finish line and that’s what all that initial smoke and fluid was,” Hossler said. “Of course that was just like suddenly pushing the clutch in and the motor just zinged up and that’s what banged the blower. It really wasn’t that bad in the car, not near as bad as it looked, but we had to do a major thrash just to get back out there.”
Hossler caught a huge break in the semis when Jason Scruggs left way too soon in his ’63 Corvette with a -.067 light that negated a career-best 3.590 pass at 208.07 mph, while Hossler’s ’57 Chevy broke off shortly after launching and rolled through the lights in 6.226 at only 95 mph.
“I just screwed up,” Scruggs admitted later. “I flinched right as the tree came on and as soon as I did that I knew I was going red. I was just trying too hard, that’s all, but it’s a shame because I think we had a car here that could’ve won.”
Hossler’s bad luck finally caught up with him during his burnout for the final when an oil line popped off under the sudden pressure.
“It started sliding sideways a little on the burnout like it does sometimes, but then it just kept going like I was driving on ice or something,” Hossler said. “Just a little mistake in putting everything back together in a hurry, I guess, but it’s much better it came off when it did than when I was going 200 miles an hour. I actually feel lucky we made it as far as we did, so I’m not complaining.”
Despite getting the free pass, Tutterow took the opportunity to make another hard hit on the Motorplex eighth mile, running a bracket-like 3.639 at 210.80 mph in his new Jeffers Pro Cars-built ’67 Mustang GT 500.
“We didn’t run any .50s or anything like that, but the car was running so consistent I didn’t want to mess around with it,” he said. “I’m a pretty conservative racer and sometimes that bites me, but it’s got to go to the finish line to win.”
Tutterow added this latest win is just as big and just as important as any of his previous triumphs.
“We’re real happy to win the Battle for the Belts again. This is a big, big deal to beat the best of the best out here. These guys are all so tough and any one of these cars in the Belts race could’ve won today. The ADRL is the best doorslammer racing anywhere and I hope it sticks around for a long, long time.”
MILLEN IS THE MAN - Despite tying his own ET record with a winning 3.823-seconds pass at 202.21 mph in the ADRL Extreme 10.5 (XTF) Battle for the Belts final against Billy Glidden, Dan Millen stressed it was not an easy victory.
“You can’t take anyone for granted out here,” said Millen, who also earned his second straight ADRL world championship this weekend (Oct. 21-23) at the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals presented by Summit Racing Equipment at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis. “But when you’re racing Billy you’re racing the best. You just know he’s not going to make a mistake. He’s not going to give you anything at all.”
Glidden, the 2008 XTF champion, opened his 2011 Battle for the Belts run with a career-best 3.882-seconds pass at 190.89 mph in his nitrous-fed 2010 Mustang to beat Grant McCrary and his twin-turboed 2008 Stratus. He then ran 3.911 at 189.68 for a stripe-to-stripe win in the semis over Frankie Taylor and his screw-blown 2005 Corvette.
Meanwhile, Millen enjoyed a bye run with his screw-blown 2011 Mustang in the opening round thanks to his number-one qualifying status as points leader heading into the Battle. His 3.875 at 199.76 gave him lane choice over Chuck Ulsch in the semis, where Millen overcame a .019 holeshot by Ulsch with a 3.828-seconds pass at 201.94 mph.
In the final, Millen left first with a .023 light to Glidden’s .047 and then matched his career-best while Glidden went 3.896 at 189.60 mph.
“I think this one’s the most special,” Millen said of what actually is his third Battle for the Belts victory after winning the 2010 ADRL Belt and championship, as well as its equivalent overseas in Qatar last winter. “This weekend has been like no other, taking stuff out, putting it back. We’ve been hurting transmission parts because we’re working the car hard.
”All year long we’ve just had to work so hard and overcome so much adversity and setbacks this year that it makes this one even better. I can’t thank my crew enough for everything they go through with me; those guys are the best.”
PROUD OWNER OF A BELT - Ashley Owens clinched the 2011 ADRL Pro Extreme Motorcycle world championship a month ago at the previous event in Norwalk, Ohio, but still had some unfinished business heading into the LenMar Motorsport ADRL World Finals presented by Summit Racing 
Equipment this weeked in Ennis, Texas. Last year, after dominating all season long, Owens lost the championship in the Battle for the Belts final to Kim Morrell.
He got his do-over opportunity Saturday night (Oct. 22) at the Texas Motorplex, as Owens again reached the Belts final, this time against Billy Vose, who beat Owens with a holeshot at Rockingham, North Carolina early in September. Exacting a measure of revenge, Owens left with a .028 advantage off the tree, which allowed his 4.062 at 169.34-mph pass to beat the slightly quicker 4.060 at 168.49 by Vose.
“We struggled a little bit this weekend, but Paul (Gast) and Butch (Schwartz), they did a great job to keep everything going. That wasn’t our best pass, but I guess it was good enough,” said Owens, who opened his Belts victory with a 4.065 bye run in the opening round before earning a 4.072 semi-final win over Eric McKinney.
Vose, meanwhile, enjoyed the performance advantage after a 4.046 at 173.29-mph win over Terry Schweigert in the opener, followed by a 4.061 single in the semis when Morrell was unable to return after breaking the crank in her engine in a round-one win over Casey Stemper.
“We had the dominant bike for the first two-thirds of the season, but lately a same guys have been catching up to us. But after all the dust has settled I really believe the most deserved motorcycle won; not only because it was extremely fast all year, but the rider did a great job all year,” said Gast, team owner for Owens and a fellow rider in the class.
“So I think the correct bike won the race, but if Billy would’ve won it, then the correct bike would’ve won then, too, I’m sure.”
TAYLOR TAKES PX LEAD INTO ELIMINATIONS - The record-tying 3.581 at 211.36 mph that Frankie Taylor ran in Friday night’s opening round of Pro Extreme (PX) qualifying for the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment held up through Saturday’s three sessions to give him the number-one position for race day at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas. Jason Scruggs ran a career-best 3.590 to place second, followed by new class champion Jason Hamstra and Todd Tutterow, who won the PX Battle for the Belts late on Saturday night. With a stout 3.729, Michael Recchia secured the 16th and final position in the quickest PX field in ADRL history, shattering the previous mark by .066 of a second. In fact, both Neal Wantye and Jon Stouffer, the 17th and 18th qualifiers, respectively, beat the old quickest field record of 3.795 seconds.
AUXIER ON TOP OF PN LIST - Pro Nitrous (PN) produced the biggest shake-up at the head of the qualifying list in the fourth and final round. Last year’s class champion Burton Auxier finished in first place with a 3.780 at 194.52 with Shannon Jenkins just one thousandth behind. Class rookie Rickie Jones saw his career-best, opening-round 3.788 bumped down to third in what almost was the quickest PN field in history. With only 16 cars left after Robert Mathis suffered a devastating starting-line fire early in the day and John Hall in 15th with a 3.910 that was a full four hundredths under the previous record set in 2010, it was up to Pat Stoken to improve on the troubled 4.979 he ran in Saturday’s first session. Stoken ran into trouble again on his final attempt, though, grazing the left wall about half-track with his ’69 Camaro.
MILLEN PREVAILS IN XTF QUALIFYING RACE - Throughout four rounds of Extreme 10.5 (XTF) qualifying, Grant McCrary and Dan Millen traded the number-one spot several times before Millen prevailed with a near-record 3.828 at 199.17 mph in his screw-blown 2011 Mustang. McCrary’s twin-turbocharged ’08 Stratus ran 3.860 at 203.83 in his final qualifying pass to place second, while the blown ’68 Camaro of Chuck Ulsch placed third at 3.870 and 204.29 mph.
VOSE DOMINATES PXM QUALIFYING - Former two-time ADRL Pro Extreme Motorcycle champ Billy Vose led through all four rounds of qualifying for the ADRL World Finals at the Texas Motorplex. Vose, riding an 1800-cc Suzuki for team owner TT Jones, finished on top of the quickest PXM field in history with a 4.046 at 175.71 mph run in the third of four sessions. Casey Stemper was close behind at 4.051, with new class champion Ashley Owens third in the 16-bike field anchored by Derrick Holloway with a 4.188 at 166.93 that beat the old ET mark for quickest field by nearly three hundredths.
GOFORTH GOES QUICKEST IN XPS QUALIFYING - After four rounds of qualifying were completed, the top four qualifying positions in Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) remained unchanged from Friday evening’s opening session. Newly crowned class champion Cary Goforth led the way with a 4.058-seconds pass at 177.53 mph and while Pete Berner ran an identical ET, he was over one mile per hour slower, relegating him to second, just ahead of Goforth’s father and teammate, Dean, and outgoing champion John Montecalvo. Richie Stevens Jr., who beat Cary Goforth with a holeshot in the XPS Battle for the Belts final, was fifth. Sixteenth-place qualifier Cale Aronson’s 4.108 at 173.85 mph made the World Finals field he quickest in ADRL history.
BALOOSHI BAGS PRO MOD POLE - With his fourth and final attempt, Khalid Al-Balooshi jumped up from sixth to the number-one position in Pro Mod qualifying for the ADRL World Finals at Ennis, Texas. In the quickest pass so far for the recently added ADRL Pro Mod class, Balooshi ran 3.886 seconds at 194.04 mph in his nitrous-boosted Al-Anabi Racing ’68 Camaro. Second on the Pro Mod list with his roots-blown ’69 Camaro was Canadian Kenny Lang, with Pete Farber and his supercharged ’69 Dodge Daytona third, while Dave Pierce in another nitrous Camaro filled out the top half of the eight-car field.
RAFERY TOPS IN TOP SPORTSMAN - Saturday’s opening session of Top Sportsman qualifying saw Keith Raftery and his Lake Charles, Louisiana-based ’68 Camaro take over the top spot in Top Sportsman with a 4.038-seconds pass that lasted through two more rounds. The 4.081 by Friday’s leader, Earl Folse, dropped to second, while Ronnie Davis with a 4.101 pass in his ’63 Vette placed third in the 16-car field.
THE MOTHER OF ALL OILDOWNS - Just when you thought you had seen it all, this run by Alex Hossler knocks the level of carnage up a level. In beating Mick Snyder, Hossler lost an engine in the lights spraying oil from one side of the track to the other and on the wall. The vast deposit of oil went over into the other lane as well.
SCARY INFERNO - Things got hot in a hurry for Robert Mathis in round two of Pro Nitrous qualifying Saturday afternoon at the ADRL World Finals in Ennis, Texas.
“I was purging the nitrous and it got down to about 1,004 pounds and it stopped,” Mathis explained. “I went down on the gas to clear the motor up and it just went, Boom!
“I'm just depressed I can't keep going in the race,” the Florida-based racer added upon assessing his weekend-ending damage.
The explosion sent his ’69 Camaro’s hood scoop skyward and blew the entire intake manifold and carburetor assembly off the top of the Reher & Morrison engine that Mathis installed brand-new at the ADRL’s previous event just last month at Norwalk, Ohio. With less than 25 passes on the new combination, Mathis theorized a leaking nitrous solenoid led to the blast that also broke a fuel line to feed the fire.
“I was holding my breath the whole time and somebody pulled me out in a hurry,” Mathis said. “I felt a little gust of heat, but I really felt safe. There wasn’t really any reason to panic. The safety guys were on top of it.”
Though the flames were doused quickly and Mathis emerged unscathed to delighted applause from the fans, his car sustained significant body and engine damage.
“We’ll have to get new engine from Reher-Morrison and replace everything from the firewall forward,” Mathis said. “Now we’re thinking about Royal Purple Raceway (in Houston). We’ll be there (to start the 2012 ADRL season next March).”
JOB WITH PERKS - Right about now, Brian “Lump” Self considers himself the most fortunate guy in the ADRL pits.
Not only does he serve as crew chief for newly crowned ADRL Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) World Champion Cary Goforth and his father, Dean Goforth, who also races in the mountain-motor class, but for the team’s last three outings, Self has also strapped himself into a Goforth Racing 2007 Cobalt and seen some impressive results.
He attempted to qualify for the ADRL race at Norwalk, Ohio, last month, but an undiagnosed engine problem there, coupled with only two qualifying opportunities due to rain, kept him out of eliminations. Then, last weekend (Oct. 15-16) at Tulsa Raceway Park for the quarter-mile Throwdown in T-Town, a piston wrist pin broke during the burnout for his first qualifying pass.
“That was obviously what held us back at Norwalk, but we were able to throw a new engine in there and we qualified 1-2-3 in Tulsa,” Self said. “What was really neat was that we all set personal bests there. Cary went 6.21 and Dean went 6.25, which was the quickest they’ve ever been, and I got to go 6.27 at 222, which was quite fun. That’s the quickest and fastest I’ve ever been, too.”
Self said he’s driven a couple of NHRA Pro Stockers in the past and made some test laps in the mountain-motor cars, but admitted he’s “never got to run one to the finish line like I did last week.”
After two rounds of XPS qualifying for the ADRL World Finals this weekend at the Texas Motorplex, Cary Goforth was holding down the number-one spot with a 4.058 at 177.53 mph, his dad was third at 4.061 at 177.49, and Self was sitting sixth with a 4.082-seconds pass at 175.75 mph.
Good results by most standards, but not yet what Self is hoping for.
“I’m looking to step on it and qualify top three,” he said. “I’d like to see all three of our cars qualified 1-2-3; that’s the plan.”
Self also pointed out how fortunate he feels in his current position.
“What can you say about the boss, Dean? He lets me be the crew chief and drive? That just doesn’t happen, but it happens in this camp. Me and Mike Neff, I guess; that’s about it,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of guys to work and race with; it’s just unbelievable the year we’ve had together.”
FRIDAY NOTEBOOK -
MADMAN ON A MISSION - 
In the final pairing of the night for the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals presented by Summit Racing Equipment, 2010 Pro Extreme (PX) champ Frankie Taylor tied his own ADRL elapsed time record and fell just one-third of a mile an hour short of the speed mark with a 3.581-seconds pass at 211.36 mph in his Larry Jeffers-built ’05 Corvette.
“That’s the first car in the 3.50s in Texas,” said Taylor, who hails from Dickinson, near Houston. “I tried to go 3.57; I wanted to get the record again. I thought it went a little faster, but it felt good. I could tell it was hauling the mail. It’s still the fastest car in the United States at three different tracks.”
Fellow Texan Gaylen Smith placed second, while Jason Hamstra, who needs to win only one round of racing to clinch the 2011 championship, was third. The top five was rounded out by Alex Hossler and Von Smith, with Jon Stouffer in the 16th and final qualifying slot with a very vulnerable 4.258 at just over 125 mph after 25 Pro Extreme entries made qualifying passes.
A CAREER BEST - Rickie Jones, an NHRA Pro Stock veteran, but still in his first season as a Pro Nitrous (PN) driver, ran a career-best 3.788 at 195.73 mph in his Quarter-Max ’69 
Camaro to lead qualifying after one session for the season-ending LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals presented by Summit Racing Equipment.
“We’re in Texas, so I guess you can say it was like a buckin’ bronco,” Jones said. “This thing launched, it set the front end back down and picked it up again and I knew it was checkin’ out. It was awesome!”
Jones, fresh off running his first 3.70s pass with a 3.79 in testing at Tulsa Raceway Park earlier in the week, said it “felt great” to go even quicker in official qualifying at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.
“I pushed the clutch in and normally you can look up and see what your ET was, but the scoreboards here show either the speed or the ET, but not both at the same time and I looked up and saw my speed, but the ET didn’t come up until I had already rolled past so I didn’t know how good it really was,” Jones recalled.
“I was waiting for someone to come on the radio and tell me, but it took a long time so I knew it was either really good or really bad. It felt really good, but I wasn’t sure until I heard, ‘A 3.78, you’re on the pole!’ It was awesome, a lot of fun.”
Running alongside Jones in the last pairing of the class, Shannon Jenkins in a fill-in role for regular driver Mahan Al-Naemi, placed second, with Jenkins’ teammate and nearly confirmed new class champ Mike Castellana third, followed by Jeff Naiser and Stan Allen.
With 17 PN cars making qualifying passes, only Robert Mathis was outside the 16-car field after the first session was in the books.
After each suffered trouble on their initial qualifying attempts, new PXM World Champion Ashley Owens was 24th, last year’s champ, Kim Morrell, was 25th and 2009 PXM champion Scott Gray held the 26th and last position.
ADRL Pro Nitrous class, but after a 14-hour drive from Chancellor, Alabama, he showed up at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis this weekend with the car painted in traditional Pilcher family colors.“For years and years back to the early ‘70s, even the ‘60s, all of our race cars have been silver and white in some orientation,” the three-time ADRL event winner said. “This car, it was a partnership with Red Williams, who was a friend of my dad’s, and when he passed away we just left it black, which was his color, and raced it in his honor like that. On the dash there’s still a little buzzard there because all of Red’s race cars were named ‘The Buzzard,’ so he still rides with me every pass.
“Red was a great person and a good friend, but we decided this year it was time to go back to our own family colors. Another reason was because we did a lot of body work on the car and it’s kind of hard to hide body work with black paint, so the car’s now white. But we like it just because it’s kind of a family tradition.”
For the past couple of years Pilcher has been competing in the ADRL on only a part-time basis for car owner Drexel Stewart in his ’68 Camaro. Most recently, Pilcher qualified that car eighth at Rockingham (NC) Dragway, but was unable to answer the call for eliminations.
“We had some tune-up issues and pinched a piston, but we didn’t have time to change it between rounds,” Pilcher explained. “But we’ve got that fixed now, we’ve made a couple of hits on it since then and it looks good.”
That same Sonny’s motor is now residing between the frame rails of the Tommy Mauney-built Vette, which Pilcher said is about 150 pounds lighter than the Camaro. But he insists he doesn’t even know the engine’s size. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not going to lie; this is actually a motor that Sonny is doing some R&D on,” he said, suggesting it may be one of Sonny Leonard’s latest 900-plus-cubic-inch monsters.
Regardless, after running the Corvette in five previous races this year and winning three with a runner-up finish at another, Pilcher said he’s looking forward to his first ADRL experience with it this year. After one round of qualifying he sat seventh with a 3.885-seconds effort at 193.35 mph.
“There’s not a whole lot of races going on around home right now that we can participate in, so we just decided to come out here, be around some good friends and see what we can do,” he said.
He also revealed a hopeful plan for returning to a full-time ADRL effort in 2012.
“Yes, we’re trying to work a deal out where we’ll have a new car for that,” Pilcher confirmed. “We’ll probably do a new Mauney car and it’ll be a late-model Camaro. Tommy says he can make us a real light car and I believe him, so we might try that. We just have to see how everything plays out. I mean, it’s on paper; it’s just not quite done yet. Contracts have been drawn; how about I say that?”
PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME - After a dismal start to the 2011 ADRL season that saw Jason Scruggs DNQ at a couple of races and struggle to get past the first round at others, the former back-to-back Pro Extreme champ came alive in August at Virginia Motorsports Park, where he won from the number-two qualifying position.
That performance vaulted Scruggs from 15th in points to sixth, and more importantly into contention for the season-ending Battle for the Belts, a special-event, race-within-a-race for the top eight points earners headed into this weekend’s ADRL World Finals at Ennis, Texas.
He maintained his sixth-place ranking with a runner-up finish against Frankie Taylor at the next race in Rockingham, North Carolina, but an early exit in Norwalk, Ohio, dropped Scruggs down to seventh. Under the Battle for the Belts format, which awards a first-round bye to the points leader, that means Scruggs has to face off with number-eight qualifier Joshua Hernandez to see who advances into the quarter-finals.
Regardless, his father and crew chief, Mitchell Scruggs, remains confident.
“Josh and his guys, they’re good people and real good racers and we respect what they do, but right now we’ve got a good hot rod; it ran 25 passes without shaking and has been consistently fast. I think we’ve got a good chance of doing well this weekend,” he said. “I’d rather have a good, strong hot rod right now going into the Battle for the Belts, rather than run real good early and be looking to go faster now. We’ll just give it our best and hope it all works out.”
PXM CHAMP RETURNS TO RACING - Scott Gray, the 2009 ADRL Pro Extreme Motorcycle world champion is making his first ADRL start in nearly 1.5 years at the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment—aboard a bike he built himself.
“This is the first time I ever built anything like this,” Gray revealed. “I did talk to a couple of people (about building it), but they just didn’t have time for it right now, so I just thought I’d give it a shot myself.
“I wanted to try some new stuff, so I changed quite a bit on it. You’ve got to be willing to try new stuff if you want to go faster.”
Gray said his first time testing his creation came Wednesday and Thursday at Dallas Raceway in Crandall, Texas, before this weekend’s race at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis.
“I ran some good, competitive numbers with it, but this track is going to be a lot better so I think we’ll be right back up there,” Gray said before posting a 4.26 pass at 164 mph in Friday afternoon’s test session. The first of four rounds of qualifying will follow on Friday night.
“Like I said, I’ve been gone for nearly a year and a half, and to ride it the first time brought back why I love to ride these things so much. And I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing things for myself; I’ve always done my own motors, and then to build the whole chassis, get on it and ride it and see that it works, it was very fulfilling.
“The last time I was out I was struggling and having problems, so if I can just qualify and go some rounds I would be very happy,” the former champ concluded.
GLIDDEN TINKERING TOWARDS TITLE - Billy Glidden is a classic tinkerer.
It’s what he loves to do and one of his many passions.
But in his position with a low-budget team that consists of himself and his wife, Shannon, it’s also a necessity.
After a thorough tinkering job after the ADRL’s Ohio Drags V, the Extreme 10.5 legend might be onto his best discovery yet.
Heading into the final ADRL race of the 2011 season at the Texas Motorplex, Glidden is primed to bring his best package yet on the heels of running a career-best 3.90 a week ago at Tulsa Raceway Park.
It also has the normally even-keeled Glidden understandably excited heading into the weekend’s Battle For The Belts and the World Finals.
“We’re just about to run out of time, is the problem. We ran out of time for the points battle, but it’s better to find it anytime than not at all,” Glidden said. “I’m really anxious to see what we can accomplish.
“I’m going there with the thoughts of trying to win on Saturday and on Sunday. We’ll take what we can get. I’d like to take whatever we can.”
Glidden enters the weekend with plenty of momentum with a 700-inch engine from Jeff Naiser’s Naiser Racing Components engine he debuted at Virginia Motorsports Park in August.
Glidden has tinkered plenty with the new engine and the combination on his Extreme 10.5 car, coming to the ultimate find in Tulsa.
Glidden ran a 3.91 during the “Throwdown At T-Town” and then went a blistering 3.90 to beat Naiser of all people in the Pro Nitrous finals (while still running on his 10.5 tires).
The new combination also led to a speed of 189 miles per hour, which shatters a career best and let the former XTF World Champion know he is definitely on the right track.
“Since we’ve changed to a bigger engine, clutch management has just been a huge issue for us,” Glidden said. “We’ve got an NHRA Pro Stock style bellhousing and a Pro Stock style clutch, so I’ve been trying to make due with what we’ve got. I’ve been continually changing the combination, trying to find the combination that’s able to pull the power we’ve got here.
“For what we’re doing here with the Nitrous combination, we’re doing really well. We’re just trying to make the best with what we got here. We actually continue to do a little better with every race with this new engine.”
Glidden, who has 12 career XTF wins, ran a 3.91 during the Ohio Drags, but consistency with the new engine plagued him and Grant McCrary drove around him for the second time in three races.
During both of those runs against the turbo driver, Glidden slipped the clutch too hard.
He ran as hard as he could in fourth gear, but the clutch slipped just enough in fifth gear and McCrary, who won in Norwalk, easily chased Glidden down.
“That’s why I’m trying to get it where I can get through gear but still get enough clutch in to not have that scenario happen to me anymore,” Glidden said. “I’m wore out with people driving around us so easily down the track.”
As the racing gods would have it, Glidden and McCrary will meet in the first round of Saturday’s Battle For The Belts shootout, making it one of the top first-round matchups in any class.
Glidden has conceded the points title to Dan Millen or Frankie Taylor, but his weekend in Ennis includes plenty of goals, including winning the BFTB and the World Finals.
Thanks to plenty of tinkering, Glidden thinks there’s never been a better opportunity to accomplish both.
“We’re really excited about the possibilities we have coming up,” said Glidden, who could make his first trip to the 3.80s this weekend. “I believe there’s a very good possibility we’ll run significantly better than we did in Norwalk.”
“Since Norwalk, I have made changes to the entire engine – pistons, cam shafts, cylinder heads; I’ve made several changes. I’ve made some changes that, at least in my head, it will help me with what I’m doing. I’m anxious about it and I think we’re on a path that’s going to help us for Ennis.”
“We’d been 3.80 a couple of times and even though it was just testing it still felt good to see that number on the time slip,” Jones said. “Now we just have to find it again in official competition.”
Jones also ran a career-best .929 to the 60-foot marker and covered the first half of the 660-foot strip in 2.527 seconds at the track slated to close late this month. He typically sees short times in the .935-.940 range.
“I knew it was on a good one as soon as it took off. Hopefully it’ll run that good here this weekend,” he said. “It sure would be nice to finish this year off with a win.”
MATUSEK MAKING IT BACK TO ADRL - Fresh off setting a new NMCA speed record of 250.41 mph a couple of weeks back at Indianapolis, Aeromotive Fuel Systems founder and president Steve Matusek is bringing his twin-turboed 2010 Mustang to the LenMar Motorsports ADRL World Finals VII presented by Summit Racing Equipment this weekend (Oct. 21-23) at the Texas Motorplex, near Dallas.
“Now that the thing’s going in the right direction and we feel like we have a healthy car plan, we’re going to try to maximize the amount of racing and the amount of exposure we can get,” Matusek says. “We’re at the ADRL because that’s the venue we feel is very popular and we have not raced with the ADRL for a couple of years.”
Matusek will enter the Pro Modified class recently added to select events by the ADRL for cars built to NHRA-legal rules, though running on the ADRL’s standard eighth-mile distance. Next year, Pro Mod will become a full-time professional class with the ADRL.
Matusek says he plans to use his ADRL outing largely as a test session for next weekend’s NHRA season-ending Pro Mod race in Las Vegas and the Nov. 17-20 Street Car SuperNationals, also at The Strip at Las Vegas.
“We’re not necessarily going to tune the car up to run the eighth like a lot of guys do,” he says. “We’re really trying to focus on getting the acceleration in the first half of the track because we know if we can break the three-second barrier there, the car’s going to run out the back and will easily run in the fives (seconds) at Vegas. So if we can get it under four seconds in Dallas, we’ll be pretty excited. The other thing is, at four seconds with the ADRL we’re very competitive, too; it’s anybody’s game at that point.”
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