HALSEY’S HISTORIC WEEKEND
Jim Halsey might not have been the key figure in the race to the nitrous doorslammer five articles, but he ensured he was the first to take the stripe with an astoundingly consistent performance over the weekend. The nitrous Pro Modified veteran from Street, Md., recorded not only the first five second run with a 5.998-second lap during qualifying at the Shakedown at E’town outlaw Pro Modified event, but also carded four consecutive milestone runs including a 5.959 in the final round of the event.
The quickest and fastest nitrous doorslammer run in drag racing history – priceless.
Even $2.6 million dollars wouldn’t purchase his record-setting 1968 Camaro.
He’s the only nitrous five-second runner in the world …
Jim Halsey might not have been the key figure in the race to the nitrous doorslammer five articles, but he ensured he was the first to take the stripe with an astoundingly consistent performance over the weekend. The nitrous Pro Modified veteran from Street, Md., recorded not only the first five second run with a 5.998-second lap during qualifying at the Shakedown at E’town outlaw Pro Modified event, but also carded four consecutive milestone runs including a 5.959 in the final round of the event.
The quickest and fastest nitrous doorslammer run in drag racing history – priceless.
Even $2.6 million dollars wouldn’t purchase his record-setting 1968 Camaro.
“That was our goal this weekend,” Halsey said of breaking the performance barrier. “We knew we’d be coming into a great race track with great air and we have big horsepower from stuff we’re trying from Gene Fulton. We’ve won the 50th anniversary NHRA U.S. Nationals and this feels better than that.”
Halsey’s performance, he says, can be directly attributed to his engine builder Gene Fulton, who once built the engines for the majority of the nitrous Pro Modified combatants. The five-second showcase was just scratching the surface of future potential for this team.
“Gene has probably forgotten a lot more than most people will ever know about building race engines,” Halsey admitted. “I can’t wait until we get our new Outlaw car finished because this one is about 100 pounds overweight. It’s gonna be hard to imagine what we can run in real outlaw trim.”
Much of the race to the nitrous five-second zone was dominated by Mike Castellana, who came the closest with a 6.000 elapsed time in Martin, Mi. Castellana failed to qualify for the event after three aborted attempts.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Mike Castellana and his team because they run fast,” Halsey said. “They test hard like we do, we just happened to have pulled it out first.”
Being the first into the fives isn’t something that Halsey has fully grasped a day after winning.
“It hasn’t set in yet,” Halsey said. “All of this hard work is paying off.”
