JIM HALSEY: NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET

by Ian Tocher    Wed, 2021-02-03 09:39

 

 

How fitting that Jim Halsey's nitrous-huffing '68 Camaro figured so prominently on posters and online advertising for the annual U.S. Street Nationals at Bradenton Motorsports Park. The current PDRA Pro Nitrous World Champion lived up to the pre-race hype Jan. 31, driving his multi-hued machine to a very tight holeshot victory over screw-blown rival Todd Tutterow in the Carmark Engineering Outlaw Pro Mod final.

"Pretty cool to win like that, especially when you're up against guys like Tutterow with these big, badass blower cars. It's kind of tough for us," admitted Halsey, who eked out a three-thousandths-of-a-second margin of victory thanks to leaving with a .012 advantage off the start. 

With a 3.58 seconds at 211.46-mph pass that held up throughout eliminations as quickest and fastest of the meet, Tutterow placed his Mike Decker-owned 2019 Camaro atop a list of 38 entries competing for a spot within the 32-car qualified field. Randy Weatherford started second after posting a personal-best 3.59-seconds run at 211.03 in his Procharger-boosted '69 Camaro, and Halsey was third at 3.61 and 208.42 mph.

With round one of Pro Mod eliminations completed Saturday night, Halsey advanced to Sunday's 16 with a 3.60 at 208.88 win over teammate Erica Coleman, while Tutterow ran 3.61 at 210.24 against a redlighting Scott Napierata in the final pair down the track that day.     

On Sunday, Halsey opened with a solo 3.64 at 206.76-mph pass after 14th-place qualifier Jackie Slone was unable to continue, then ran another 3.64 at 207.78 against a redlighting Melanie Salemi in her screw-blown '68 Firebird.  Victory in the semi-finals came courtesy of a sizable .046 holeshot against Weatherford, whose 3.61 at 208.33 wasn't able to hold off Halsey's 3.62 at 208.23 mph. 

Meanwhile, Tutterow outran teammate Robert Abbott with a 3.64 at 207.75 to open his Sunday efforts, then went 3.60 at 207.78 to down Terry Coyle in Chip King's supercharged '72 Mustang, before beating a second teammate, Kurt Steding and his 2020 Camaro, with a 3.61 at 209.72 in the semis.

With lane choice, Tutterow lined up on the left for the final, but it was Halsey with the advantage off the start, leaving with a .044 to Tutterow's .056 reaction time. It paid off 3.62 seconds later as Halsey turned on the win light going 207.05 mph. Tutterow showed 3.61 and 206.92 on his scoreboard.

"It was a good race. I mean, he was a little quicker on the tree than I was, but I had a little better ET and when we got to the finish line I really couldn't tell who won," Tutterow said. "And the scoreboard was kind of delayed before I saw my speed. I thought it should've run more speed than it did."

Going to the line, Halsey knew he had a tough challenge ahead of him, and when it was all over he had a similar take to Tutterow.

"I kind of figured he had a little advantage on us performance-wise so I just did what I thought I needed to do," he said. "Which was do my job driving and push it. And I actually thought I did better than it was. I was .044 and I thought I was better than that. Maybe I was (staged) real shallow or something.

"But it was a fun race to win. I could see him the whole time," Halsey continued. "When you have an advantage on everybody to where you win by a tenth (of a second) every run, then it kind of gets old after a while. This one, I knew I was in a drag race for sure."

 

 

 
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