Drag Outlaw Qualification Results
Report from Dan Parris:
What a great night of racing. We only had six hard core racers and two or three spectators who came to check out the action, as the weather was hot and dusty, but you could feel the excitement. We started with qualifying and set the first six positions of the top ten list.
1. Larry Altmayer
2. Dan Parris
3. Dale Schmitt
4. Ron Ryan
5. Shawn Sweeney
6. Jeff Sweeney
We did this with no times announced, using our new limited prep gluing procedure. Most of our cars hooked up much better then we expected and ran an estimated tenth to a tenth and a half slower then if we would have used the normal prep procedures. Everyone seemed to enjoy the challenge. Well everybody with possibly the exception of Jeff (we see a big investment coming in his program over the coming weeks). The cars looked like real street outlaws as they fishtailed down the track with many top end charges making the finishes close and exciting. Everyone was looking for that soft launch with the big speed at the finish. Some did a better job of it then others but you know their will be a lot of changes for next week.
After establishing the initial list we opened the track up to challenges. We decided the easiest way to handle the racing was to announce an open challenge period each week. We start at the bottom of the list and ask if that participant was wanting to challenge the racer immediately ahead of them. If so we ran the pair off with a coin toss for lane choice. The winner Then was allowed to challenge the next racer up the list with the loser open to be challenged from the position below them. Each racer was only allowed to race twice in one evening so you can only go up or down the list two spots a week. This also means if you are not present you can pretty much expect to drop two positions. We hope to see this promote lots of racing.
To begin the challenge period Jeff decide he did not want to race Shawn with the set up he enter, so we moved on up the list to ask Shawn and he was up for the challenge, taking on Ron with Shawn taking the win. This allowed Shawn to challenge Dale who he also put back in the box. Thus opening up a race between Ron and Dale. Dale was able to maintain his position ahead of Ron. Being Shawn had run his two races he was done for the event leaving only Larry and DP to run off for Larry’s number one spot. As it turned out DP was able to take over #1 on the list by a hole shot over a rapidly closing Larry. I think it was some of the most intense and enjoyable racing we have had in quite a while. The energy and excitement made the racing lots of fun and we expect some even better racing in the future. Fast Dan Sullivan came in to check it out and realized this type of racing was meant for him. I think this format is a winner and we can only see this program growing. Can pure grudge racing be far behind? We have a couple of firm commitments to build cars and a bunch of interest among other racers. The list will fill quickly so you had better get your program in order. Got to get going for now, as I need to get up to the shop and pick out a new Armature. Secret deal you know!