Drag Racing Weekend in Review

It was quite a busy weekend of drag racing all over the country. NHRA, PDRA, NMRA, KOTS, & Numerous grudge races took place. Hotrod Magazine Power Tour 2016 also started this weekend. We are going to provide you the wrap up on as much as possible for you to know what you need to know. 

Let's start off with the NHRA race from this weekend that occurred at Englishtown. This is a great race with a ton of history. It is also a Pro Stock Bike event along with J&A Service Pro Mod. It was hot out all weekend and the track temp was usually quite high, especially during the day. That means most teams have to dial it back in an effort to get from A to B. 

In Funny Car we saw some great surprises,the biggest of which was Jeff Diehl from California. Jeff is a surfer. He can be found at most races with his wife Leeza, who you will always notice in front of the car getting Jeff lined up and taken care of. This was by far the most successful weekend for the team as well. In the first round Jeff got around former World Champion Robert Hight and then in the second round he managed to get past another F/C heavyweight Tim Wilkerson. What makes this even better is that Jeff is a single car team with limited  resources, so they are not full equipped to turn the car around quick enough when you start going rounds, and that's when other teams stepped in to help. Chad Head's team was one of the teams that came over to help Jeff get the car turned around for the semi finals where he would face off against Fast Jack Beckman. Unfortunately this would spell the end of Jeff's very successful weekend, as when he launched the tires went up in smoke. He tried to peddle it but wasn't able to catch up to Jack, who ran a 4.06. In the other semi it was the Napa car of Ron Capps squaring off against Del Worsham. Ron, who was on a tear all weekend, kept it up during the semi's when he put up a 3.96 to Del's off the pace 8.89. Meant that we would see Fast jack and Ron in the finals. It was another final plagued by heat and smoking tires. Ron stayed on his roll and flew to a blistering 3.95 while Jack had issues and coasted to a 7.89.

In the Top Fuel class we got to see the Sarge Tony Schumacher in the Army car square off against the young guy Steve Torrence in his Capco Contractors sponsored ride. Tony got the leave on Steve with an .066 light to Steve's .073 light. Steve was the one able to take the win light when he drove around Tony and ran a 4.03 to Tony's 4.23. 

When it came to Pro Stock this may seem like a repeat of almost every other race this year. It was the KB show, when we saw Jason Line and Greg Anderson square off against each other. This time the win went to Greg over Jason when Jason lit the red bulb, going an .024 red while Greg ran a stout 6.61. This may seem like old hat for these two, but watch out, there are teams that are making strides. like the Elite team, and it's only a matter of time till the KB streak is broken.  

Pro Stock Bike saw a former World Champion and someone who hadn't won since 2007. Angelle Sampey earn yet another Wally to add to her collection.  Her Star Racing bike was making a huge move to the center but she was able to take the win over the alligator farmer Jerry Savoie. On her win to the win she also got around former World Champion Eddie Krawiec in the semi's as well. 

As previously reported, Pro Mod class this weekend was killer. We saw two heavyweights go at it in the finals. Billy Glidden, who was driving the Precision Turbo & Mickey Thompson sponsored twin turbo Camaro for the first time in competition took on last years World Champion Troy Coughlin Sr. in his Jegs sponsored, Proline powered C7 Corvette. This race was over early when Troy drove around Billy and busted off a 5.87 to Billy's well off the pace 7.37. This is Troy's first win since 2014. 

Moving over to the PDRA, where again the heat was the story of the weekend. They were up in Martin, MI at the US131 Dragway. This was a special event though, as the were including Outlaw 10.5 and Extreme Pro Stock as part of the program. there were a couple of surprises including the biggest being that Keith Haney failed to qualify for the Pro Nitrous class. As far as those that did, we saw Jay Cox defeat Steve Jackson in Pro Nitrous. John  Strickland defeated the Pro Import car from Team EKanoo when EKanoo had a battery failure and was not able to get the car started. The fact that Team EKanoo hadn't originally planned to even go to this race and then made it to the finals with a single turbo, inline 6 is beyond impressive in itself. In Pro Extreme it was Madman Frankie Taylor taking out Brandon Snider. Further results from the PDRA can be found in our PDRA Wrap Up. 

The big news coming out of KOTS (King of The Street) this weekend was that again the big winner was the baddest man in the game, Keith Szabo. He fought though a field of big names including Murder Nova, to take the win at Great Lakes Dragaway. If you don't know who Keith Szabo is, you should take a look at our previous article on him. He really is the baddest man in the game right now when it comes to that racing. He keeps winning these big paying events. 

The NMRA was back at National Trails for the first time in years, and it was hot, hot, hot. In Street Outlaw, which is their 1/8th mile radial class it was Charles Hull that took the victory over the ModFather Ronnie Diaz. In Renegade Charles Bartholow grabbed the W over Val Clements. Val did run a new personal best over the weekend though. Coyote Modified saw Joe Guertin take the victory. And in Pure Street Teddy Weaver beat out Derek Downs for the victory. Coyote Stock saw a huge amount of carnage this weekend. Seems like you could have a dumpster full of broken  transmissions by the end of the weekend. In the end though it was Drew Lyons defeating Shane Stymiest. Factory Stock was headed up by James Meredith who defeated Dan Ryntz. Modular Muscle winner was Donnie Bowles, Open Comp winner Wesley Dalrymple, Truck was won by Vinnie Teleslo, Super Stang winner was Marvin Knack, Ford Muscle was won by Chris Parisi, Bill Putnam took the win in the EcoBoost Challenge, Gary Richmond in Bracket I, Richard Jordan Jr in Bracket II, Chris Parisi in Bracket III, and Bryan Parker in Bracket IV. 

Over in Australia, at the Willowbank Raceway it was an NHRA legend that took a win. Larry Dixon was over there racing in Top Fuel in the Rapisarda Racing fueler. He faced off against Wayne Newby in the finals and cracked off a 4.91 to Wayne's well off pace 11.37. If you think that doesn't seem fast race, you'd be surprised to know that earlier rounds saw Larry go 332 mph. They also run full 1/4 mile there and not 1000'. 

Other winners from smaller races this weekend include Michael Kurt Bunton at Darlington Dragway. Dusty Bradford took the win in the N/T 28" Shootout. 

In other news, Justin Shearer, better known as Big Chief was in attendance at the NHRA race in Englishtown. This came as a shock to some after the issues that came up last year when it came to street racing and NHRA licensing. It was announced that Justin was working with the NHRA in doing some PSA in regards to street racing. We believe that there are other stories developing with Justin and the NHRA as well. We will report on that once we have some facts to pass along. We also celebrated the start of the Hotrod Power Tour, which started on Saturday and will continue until it's culmination this Thursday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS.

Congrats to all the winners and competitors from this weekend and if you  have news or anything that needs to get out there you can email us E3xtremeMedia@gmail.com