(Photos by Charles Wickam) – When the NHRA announced that they would be having a select group of Shannon Morgan’s Redemption No-Prep cars at the 2017 Spring Nationals at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas things got crazy. The internet went nuts asking why they were having no-prep cars on a prepped track, then they were convinced the NHRA was going to somehow try and screw up no-prep racing, and then some people thought it might actually be fun to watch, and then the race happened. Guess what? It was a blast, it was totally out of the norm for a national event, and everyone involved had fun. How do I know? I was there. Charles Wickam was there as well and he did a heck of a job with these images.
The cars came out first thing on Friday morning. In fact, they were the first race cars to turn a wheel at the entire event. Ken Jo “Army 2.0” Kelley, Ryan “Roxie” Hall, Cody Jones, Chris “Boosted GT” Hamilton, and others all took their shot at the track with an instant green light and no scoreboards on. The test hit was interesting. As a few of us guessed, Ken Jo Kelley got his car down on the cleanest and quickest LOOKING pass. His experience as an NMRA racer (and champion) certainly played into it. Chris Hamilton who had crashed the car like a week before fought some demons over the course of the day but it was fun to see him hammer that familiar yellow Mustang. Ryan Hall fought for traction as the powerful nitrous motor that has powered cars like Mike Hensen’s Plan B overpowered the surface.
In talking to Kelley after the event he said that a more conservative approach helped him. He actually kept most of his no-prep tune up in the car despite the fact that there was more traction available, guessing correctly that other competitors would think that the track would hold onto everything AND the kitchen sink.
Eliminations were held in the same format with an instant green and no clocks on. At the end of the day it was the Army 2.0 car of Kelley and the Roxie Camaro of Hall in the finals and Kelley got the job done. He won $6,000 from Laris Motorsports Insurance as well as a bitchin’ one off acrylic Wally style trophy. He was pretty moved by the whole experience. Everyone was.
I talked to all the racers through the weekend and they had a great time. The NHRA was impressed with the cars and how people reacted to them. Shannon Morgan is an awesome woman who has a clear vision for where she thinks Redemption should be and what she wants to do with the series. I had never met her before Houston and came away even more impressed with her than I already was from following the racing series.
So why did NHRA do this and why are they doing more stuff like this through the year? The reason is pretty simple. It is an opportunity to show traditional drag racing fans a side of the sport they may have never seen and a chance to give the racers in these awesome classes a spotlight on the biggest stage in the sport. In turn, this program really helps the tracks to promote these series and keep butts in the seats when there is no national event in town. There’s an old saying that a rising tide floats all the ships and it looks like there’s a lot of people who agree at the NHRA’s office.
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