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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK 

MEISSNER REPEATS - The Peach State’s own Tim Meissner repeated as a Duck X Productions winner at South Georgia Motorsports Park February 26, winning the Radials vs. the World final for Lights Out 14 over fellow Georgian Luis de Leon. He previously won Duck X’s No Mercy event in October 2021.

“I was 60 feet out and I was already on my radio telling the guys we got this,” said Meissner, from Douglasville. “Then I pulled the parachute and I think I lost my voice. We were screaming on the radio and they were high fiving each other back at the start and I got so excited that we fell about 300 yards short of getting to the end of the racetrack. I got stopped on the racetrack and they had to come get me.”

Meissner qualified his screw-blown ’68 Mustang 6th in the 32-car field with a 3.69-seconds pass at 201.61 mph down the SGMP eighth mile. De Leon nailed down the top spot in qualifying his nitrous-fed BAR Racing ’69 Camaro with a 3.56 at 206.73, followed by Jason Lee, Marcus Birt, Norm Bryson and Jeff Miller in the top five.  

Meissner handily defeated the ’03 Cobra of Mark Rogers and the big-block-Chevy powered 2000 Mustang of Dean Marinis in rounds one and two, respectively, but looked poised for a real quarter-finals battle against Birt Saturday night. However, Birt lost grip off the start in his ’69 Camaro, sending Meissner into Sunday morning’s semi-finals against George Williams.

Williams left with a .009 advantage off the start, but Meissner quickly scooted past with a 3.68 at 204.48 mph for the win. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the ladder, de Leon ran 3.61 at 205.82 to defeat Bryson and hold lane choice for the final.

Once there, de Leon took the tower-side right lane while Meissner lined up on the left.

It turned out to be over at the flash of green, as Meissner was ready with an impressive .006 light, while de Leon left with a .047 – and immediately lost traction.

“We were set up to do a good run, but she just wasn't ready for the track condition. But he (Meissner) had a good light and the team made a good lap, so they highly deserve that win,” de Leon said later. “So I cannot be more proud of my car and my team right now. It’s a new car and we have less than 10 laps on it, qualify number one and go all the way to the final. So before this lap I told everyone we had already won. And not hurting anything on the car? Shoot, you can't ask for more.”

Meisner’s head tuner for the event was “Stevie Fast” Jackson, not currently driving himself while continuing to heal up from off-season surgery on his neck. Jackson said he expects to be back on the track by mid-summer this year.

After qualifying at 3.69, through five rounds of eliminations Jackson tuned Meissner to consecutive runs of 3.71, 3.70, 3.69, 3.68 and the race-winning 3.67 in the final. 

“When you race during the day with a radial-tire car and the sun is out like it was here, your last five minutes of decision that you make is 80 percent of the run. You can get the engine as powerful as you want to, but if you don't have the car set up to go down the track – and it's not that the track's greasy or slimy, it's just greasier and slimier than what you're used to at night – but if you don’t take that into account, you’re not gonna’ make it,” Jackson explained.

“So yeah, I'm a daytime racer. If you look at when we win, that's when the track's bad. I'm really good in that last five minutes of car adjustment. Reading the track, putting the car in the right spot, making the motor jump through the hoops it needs to jump through to get down the racetrack. And if you're going to beat me during the day, you're going to go down the track. We were not the fastest car here. But we made our best run of the weekend in the finals. That's pretty good. Especially when the sun's out.”

For his part, Meissner expressed supreme confidence in Jackson’s tune-up and advice.

“I don't know how fast they (BAR Racing) were trying to go on that round, but some people in the pits with their crew said they were going to try and go a .58 or a .59 and if they could have went that, that would’ve been awesome,” Meissner said. “But we didn't go there. We were going to go up there with a mentality that they're going to have to beat us.

“And Stevie called that run within one number. He said we were going to go a .67 and we went a .67 with a four. But man, he was great all weekend and the car was good, it was repeatable, and it was fun!”

COLLINS CAPTURES CAREER-FIRST RADIAL WIN - “If you told me a year ago that I'd be standing here winning this race, I would’ve told you that was crazy.”

That was longtime Pro Stock veteran Jason Collins not long after beating Brylon Holder in the Pro 275 final for Lights Out 14, Mar. 27, at South Georgia Motorsports Park.

With a 3.75-seconds pass at 200.68 mph, Collins qualified Scott Tidwell’s ’69 Camaro 4th in the 32-car P275 field. Manny Buginga took the top spot at 3.71 and 203.06 mph, with defending race champion Mo Hall 2nd at 3.73 and 201.46, and Marcus Birt 3rd just three-thousandths back with another 3.73 at 200.23 mph.

Collins said he doesn’t know who originally built the car, but credited Chris Terry Racing for recently front-halving the chassis to accommodate the Proline Hemi topped with a giant screw blower.

“Putting this combo in there changed a lot of stuff,” Collins said. “And Chris, he's the one that does most of the suspension work and things of that nature on it. When we pulled in down there (at Bradenton for the U.S. Street Nationals in January), I mean, the thing was fast right off the trailer.” 

Tuned by Steve Petty, Collins made short work of No. 29 starter Robbie Vander Woud and his 2000 Camaro in round one of racing with a 3.79 at 206.67 mph. Round two saw Heath Littrell and his Hemi-powered ’69 Nova in the opposite lane, but Littrell redlighted while Collins laid down a 3.78 at 205.82-mph pass. 

Saturday night at SGMP, Collins took on No. 5 qualifier Charlie Cooper and his late-model Mustang and needed a holeshot to punch his ticket to the semis on Sunday morning. Cooper left with a .104 reaction and ran 3.73 at 209.59 mph, his quickest and fastest pass of the event, but with a .025 light leading into a 3.75 at 207.91-mph run, it all added up to a win for Collins by .056 at the eighth-mile stripe.

That left only Sunday’s semis and final round, with California’s Holder taking the win with a 3.82 at 197.77 mph in his Procharger-equipped 2015 Camaro over Hall, who lost traction off the hit. 

Collins then faced off against 9th-place qualifier Tim Dutton with his ’19 Corvette out of New Hampshire. Dutton left first with an outstanding .008 light, but also encountered trouble and slowed to a 6.51 at 99.33 mph while Collins streaked to lane choice for the final with a 3.74 at 200.44 mph, his quickest pass of the event.

“This combination makes good power and Steve (Petty) is one of the best tuners there is and he's just instantly got a handle on it,” Collins said. “I mean, working with Steve Petty, that's a big deal for anybody. You just got to do your job and this car is going to perform one way or the other. I mean, it went down the track every run on race day.”

It did go down the track one more time for Collins, as he left with a .009 advantage on Holder, who made it no farther than the tree before his car nosed over. The race was over at that point, as Collins turned on the win light in 3.81 seconds at 204.94 mph.

“So we're running Holder and I mean, we felt like we had a little bit of a performance advantage there, but when the sun starts coming out on these radial cars it's a tiptoe act. It's not like a big-tire car,” Collins said later. “This thing here, they had the front end off the car twice sitting in the staging lanes moving weight around. I mean, they'd watch one car run and they’d make a change. And then they were trying to figure out exactly where they wanted to be. These things are just different, and you don't have any wheelie bars. It’s tough.”

Regardless, back to not believing he actually won at Lights Out 14, Collins said he called his father, who he raced with side-by-side in Pro Stock for years. 

“When I talked to my dad I told him, ‘Man, as far as radial racing goes, this here is the Indy, the U.S. Nationals of radial racing. I mean, this is as big as it gets,’” he said. “It's pretty cool. I mean, it's kind of really helped me because I’m so used to just running my own car. It's a lot of work. I don't have this help, this kind of team. 

“The main thing I want to do is thank Scott Tidwell and Greg Posey for putting this deal together,” Collins said. “I mean, this is a real team, a great team, this is a good deal.”

HANCOCK HONORED WITH COPSON SPORTSMAN AWARD - The 2nd annual Blake Copson Best Sportsman Award went to Limited Drag Radial driver Jamie Hancock.

In a brief presentation ceremony in South Georgia Motorsports Park’s victory lane, just prior to handing out the event-win hardware for Lights Out 14, Hubbard accepted the award and a $1,000 cash prize courtesy of Copson’s family and Duck X promoter Donald “Duck” Long.

“In a terrible non-racing accident in 2021, we lost Blake Copson, so his family created this award to honor his memory and recognize a fellow racer who represented the spirit of competitiveness and fair play that Blake always showed,” Long said.

“This award recognizes a racer who demonstrates those same traits on a consistent basis at the track and always remains willing to help a fellow competitor in need and we couldn’t be happier to present Jamie Hancock with this year’s Blake Copson Best Sportsman Award.”

Hancock, the number-one qualifier in LDR, lost a close race in the semis to JR Pines and said he was busy packing up his nitrous-injected ’68 Camaro when he received word of the award.

“It came as a big surprise. I don’t really know what to say, other than thank you,” Hancock said later, standing next to his father, James.

“It's different, but a good way to always remember Blake since he lost his life. I really, really appreciate it and I think it's a nice way to give back to the sport and show appreciation to our racers.” 

SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - ELIMINATIONS GET UNDERWAY AS THE ACTION HEATS UP

THE DREAM IS REAL - Dane Clemens said he made the two-hour trek from Garfield, GA, to South Georgia Motorsports Park several times over the years to attend various Duck X Productions events. But Lights Out 14 marked his first attempt at being part of the show. 

DOUBLE DUTY  - Marcus Birt pulled double duty at Lights Out 14, wheeling entries for team owner Tommy Youmans in Radials vs. the World and Pro 275. Coincidentally, the Gray, GA-based driver qualified both cars third in their respective classes, then lasted until the third round of eliminations in each. 

SULLIVAN CRASHES AND BURNS - Craig Sullivan, driving for team owner Mark Woodruff, suffered a fiery crash in round two of Radials vs. the World racing, late on Saturday afternoon at South Georgia Motorsports Park. Fortunately, the Plainfield, IN-based driver was uninjured in the accident, but the supercharged '69 Camaro he was piloting sustained heavy damage to its front and right side.

It initially looked like Sullivan would gather the car up and coast down track while Bryson streaked to the win, but the car remained unsettled, hunting the centerline until taking an abrupt right turn toward the wall just as it crossed the eighth-mile finish line.

Bryson was long gone, coasting with his parachutes out in the shutdown area, but Sullivan's troubles were starting to mount as his ride ground to a halt against the right-side wall. 

 

FRIDAY QUALIFYING UNDER THE LIGHTS DELIVERS

DE LEON DELIVERS IN RVW QUALIFYING - California's Jason Lee held the number-one spot through three rounds of Radials vs. the World (RVW) qualifying for Lights Out 14, but Georgia's own Luis "Voodoo" de Leon stepped up Friday night at South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP) to head into Saturday's eliminations as top dog.

De Leon improved from a second-place 3.61 in his nitrous-breathing '69 Camaro to post a 3.56 lap at 206.73 mph in the final-of-four sessions to secure the number-one start. Lee also improved from 3.60 to 3.58 at 205.91  with his last qualifying pass to slot into second on the 32-car raceday list, while Marcus Birt improved by three-hundredths to move up one position to third with a 3.63 at 205.72 mph.

"I could not ask for more. Just a great group of people over here, all about racing," de Leon said. "We put this car together maybe two months ago, took the car once to the track to do some quick spins to see what's going on, and came here without a single full lap. That was the third full lap for the car (he lost traction on one qualifying attempt at LO14)."

De Leon explained the chassis was actually built as a Pro Mod by Jerry Bickel Race Cars in 2013 and now carries a Buck Racing nitrous engine backed up by a Mark Micke transmission. 

Heading into eliminations on Saturday, de Leon said he expects to go even quicker.

"We still need and pick up on the 60 (-foot time). The track is pretty warm right now and it's kind of humid, so not the perfect conditions for radial racing, but the track's for everyone, so you really kind of need to read it," he said. "But I think the car can be so much quicker, it will just require a better condition for that. So for sure it was way better than a .919 (60-foot time). I think the car can be substantially faster there, but we're still nit picking at it."

De Leon will face Ashley Deraney and her 2009 Pontiac GXP in the opening round of competition. Her 6.30 at just 122.67-mph combo got bumped up a couple of positions to anchor the 32-car field when double entries from other classes dropped out after using RVW qualifying for extra test passes.

BUGINGA BEST IN TAKING TOP SPOT IN PRO 275  - Marcus Birt made a statement within the first pair making a pass in the last round of Pro 275 qualifying for Lights Out 14. Driving fellow Georgian Tommy Youman's '04 Mustang, Birt blasted to a 3.73 at 200.23 to bump Alabama's Jason Collins from a lead he'd held through each of the previous three sessions.

In the next pair up, in the same lane, two-time defending event champ Mo Hall followed suit, going 3-thousandths quicker with another 3.73 in his nitrous-huffing C7 Corvette to move from third place to take over the top spot -- briefly.

Because again in the next pairing, and again in the right lane, Manny Buginga lowered the boom with a 3.71 at 203.06 mph that vaulted him and his Procharger-boosted '03 Cobra from 6th to number one on the starting list. Buginga will face off against Lou Sciortino and his '08 Corvette in Saturday's opening round of eliminations.

Buginga credited his Bridgewater, MA-based team, and specifically crew chief Jamie Miller, for his NM14 qualifying success.

"Jamie has such a good handle on that car and they've get so many runs on it, so they just basically went back to our Rolodex and figured out what we needed to try to run that number and that's what we got," said Buginga, who won the most recent Duck X race at SGMP -- in both Pro 275 and X275 at No Mercy 12 last October. 

"I mean, we've just got great people. Jamie, Franny, Brooksy, my son Manny. Just good people behind us like Mark Micke and all the guys at Proline," he added. "I just have the pleasure of letting go of the button and going down on through there, so it's great teamwork that gets it done."

Collins' previously leading 3.75 at 200.68 from round two ended up placing his '69 Camaro fourth on the 32-car raceday list, with the 2022 Mustang of New Jersey's Charlie Cooper rounding out the top five. 

HANCOCK STEPS UP IN LDR QUALIFYING - After the opening round of Limited Drag Radial qualifying for Lights Out 14 at South Georgia Motorsports Park, past Duck X winner Jamie Hancock and his nitrous-fed '68 Camaro were 11th on the list at 4.08 seconds.

By round two, the Opelika, AL, native had climbed to 6th with a 3.99, and a 3.93 in the third session had Hancock trailing only Rob Goss (3.92) and first-place DJ McCain at 3.91 and 186.72 mph.

In Friday night's fourth-and-final qualifying opportunity, Hancock became the only driver so far to break into the .80s, going 3.89 at 186.07 to reach number-one status on the 32-car raceday list.

McCain's Mustang at 3.91 placed him second, while Goss and his recently overhauled '09 Challenger held onto third, with JR Pines and his unique, Atlanta-based 2014 Cadillac CTSV was fourth and the '96 Mustang of Virginia's Andy Mason was fifth.

HUBBARD HANDLES X275 QUALIFYING AT LO14 - Kenny Hubbard once said he dreamed in high school of having the fastest car in town.

After four rounds of qualifying for Lights Out 14 were completed Feb. 24, the Montgomery, TX-based driver certainly had the quickest X275 entry at South Georgia Motorsports Park, where he and his bright orange '74 Nova sat atop a 32-car field with a 4.16 effort at 171.45 mph.   

Following Hubbard once four rounds of qualifying were completed were Ryan Milliken at 4.17, Justin Curry, DJ McCain, and Rhode Island's Eric Lafferriere, who actually was fastest in the 32-car field after running 177.60 mph in round two of qualifying. 

SPINA FIRST ON ULTIMATE LIST - With a 4.52 at 154.76 straight out of the gate, Jason Spina and his Cocoa, FL-based '90 Mustang led all three completed sessions of Ultimate Street qualifying at Lights Out 14.

An encroaching midnight curfew on Friday night prevented a scheduled fourth session from happening, leaving fellow Floridians Eugene Rodriguez second at 4.53, with Ray Cox and James Taal both going 4.54 in third and fourth, respectively.

Speedway, IN's Haley James, the first female winner in Duck X Productions history at No Mercy 13 last fall, was first on the 23-entry Ultimate list from beyond the Sunshine State, also with a 4.54 at a class-leading 160.23 mph in her 2000 “War Eagle” Mustang.

RAMIREZ RULES IN LIMITED 235 QUALIFYING - With a 4.92 at 140.24-mph effort, Eddie Ramirez of Sanford, FL, drove his '88 Mustang to the top of Limited 235 qualifying at Lights Out 13.

Following Ramirez on the 29-car list -- meaning Ramirez gets a first-round bye in eliminations -- were Brad Schehr, from Ft. Myers, FL, at 4.99 in an '89 Mustang and at 5.00, Douglasville, GA's Bill Kubiac with his 1990 Mustang.

Just one thousandth behind Kubiac at 5.005, and all the way from Australia with his 1988 GM Holden, Michael Konstandinou qualified fourth, while another Floridian, Dean Fluhart of Jacksonville, filled out the top five with his '68 Mustang.

THURSDAY - LEE UPS THE ANTE IN RADIAL VS. THE WORLD QUALIFYING

Armed with the confidence of a strong Wednesday performance, Jason Lee upped his performance to a 3.600 elapsed time at 206.57. Louis DeLeon moved up to the No. 2 spot as he improved to a 3.616. Veteran RVW racer Norman Bryson moved up to third quickest with a 3.643. There are now 37 entries on the qualifying sheet after Day Two.

Due to the local curfew, only two other classes got qualifying hits. Jason Spina continued his hold on Ultimate Street qualifying though he failed to improve. Eddie Ramirez was the leader in Limited 235 with a 4.962.

WEDNESDAY - JASON LEE SETS THE PACE AGAIN IN RADIAL VS. WORLD

Some things never change, and for Jason Lee, it's another early hot shot performance at the Duck X Productions Lights Out 14. Lee jumped out to the lead in Wednesday's provisional Radial vs. The World qualifying as his 3.615 elapsed time at 205.91 miles per hour was plenty enough to grab the No. 1 spot, edging out No. 2 Marcus Birt, who turned in a first-day 3.661. Louis DeLeon was third with a 3.662. There are 22 cars on the sheet for the opening session.

In the Pro 275 division, just like Radial vs. The World, the frontrunners staked their claim early. Jason Collins took the top spot with a 3.773, 181.35 to edge out Birt, whose double-duty effort yielded a 3.774. Mo Hall was third quickest with a 3.783.

Ryan Milliken'sa diesel '69 Nova was the head of the class for X275 with a 4.195. Other top runners include Rob Goss (Limited Drag Radial, 3.928), Jason Spina (Ultra Street, 4,522) and Joel Granna (Gear Banger, 4.633).

Qualifying continues on Thursday with all divisions getting at least one run.

The Peach State’s own Tim Meissner repeated as a Duck X Productions winner at South Georgia Motorsports Park February 26, winning the Radials vs. the World final for Lights Out 14 over fellow Georgian Luis de Leon. He previously won Duck X’s No Mercy event in October 2021.

“I was 60 feet out and I was already on my radio telling the guys we got this,” said Meissner, from Douglasville. “Then I pulled the parachute and I think I lost my voice. We were screaming on the radio and they were high fiving each other back at the start and I got so excited that we fell about 300 yards short of getting to the end of the racetrack. I got stopped on the racetrack and they had to come get me.”

Meissner qualified his screw-blown ’68 Mustang 6th in the 32-car field with a 3.69-seconds pass at 201.61 mph down the SGMP eighth mile. De Leon nailed down the top spot in qualifying his nitrous-fed BAR Racing ’69 Camaro with a 3.56 at 206.73, followed by Jason Lee, Marcus Birt, Norm Bryson and Jeff Miller in the top five.  

Meissner handily defeated the ’03 Cobra of Mark Rogers and the big-block-Chevy powered 2000 Mustang of Dean Marinis in rounds one and two, respectively, but looked poised for a real quarter-finals battle against Birt Saturday night. However, Birt lost grip off the start in his ’69 Camaro, sending Meissner into Sunday morning’s semi-finals against George Williams.

Williams left with a .009 advantage off the start, but Meissner quickly scooted past with a 3.68 at 204.48 mph for the win. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the ladder, de Leon ran 3.61 at 205.82 to defeat Bryson and hold lane choice for the final.

Once there, de Leon took the tower-side right lane while Meissner lined up on the left.

It turned out to be over at the flash of green, as Meissner was ready with an impressive .006 light, while de Leon left with a .047 – and immediately lost traction.

“We were set up to do a good run, but she just wasn't ready for the track condition. But he (Meissner) had a good light and the team made a good lap, so they highly deserve that win,” de Leon said later. “So I cannot be more proud of my car and my team right now. It’s a new car and we have less than 10 laps on it, qualify number one and go all the way to the final. So before this lap I told everyone we had already won. And not hurting anything on the car? Shoot, you can't ask for more.”

Meisner’s head tuner for the event was “Stevie Fast” Jackson, not currently driving himself while continuing to heal up from off-season surgery on his neck. Jackson said he expects to be back on the track by mid-summer this year.

After qualifying at 3.69, through five rounds of eliminations Jackson tuned Meissner to consecutive runs of 3.71, 3.70, 3.69, 3.68 and the race-winning 3.67 in the final. 

“When you race during the day with a radial-tire car and the sun is out like it was here, your last five minutes of decision that you make is 80 percent of the run. You can get the engine as powerful as you want to, but if you don't have the car set up to go down the track – and it's not that the track's greasy or slimy, it's just greasier and slimier than what you're used to at night – but if you don’t take that into account, you’re not gonna’ make it,” Jackson explained.

“So yeah, I'm a daytime racer. If you look at when we win, that's when the track's bad. I'm really good in that last five minutes of car adjustment. Reading the track, putting the car in the right spot, making the motor jump through the hoops it needs to jump through to get down the racetrack. And if you're going to beat me during the day, you're going to go down the track. We were not the fastest car here. But we made our best run of the weekend in the finals. That's pretty good. Especially when the sun's out.”

For his part, Meissner expressed supreme confidence in Jackson’s tune-up and advice.

“I don't know how fast they (BAR Racing) were trying to go on that round, but some people in the pits with their crew said they were going to try and go a .58 or a .59 and if they could have went that, that would’ve been awesome,” Meissner said. “But we didn't go there. We were going to go up there with a mentality that they're going to have to beat us.

“And Stevie called that run within one number. He said we were going to go a .67 and we went a .67 with a four. But man, he was great all weekend and the car was good, it was repeatable, and it was fun!”