From the moment the staging lanes were open at Beech Bend Raceway, the cars poured in, waiting for their crack at the Christmas Tree. This wasn’t a surprise…there was cash on the line. $15,000 guaranteed on a 32-car field, $10,000 guaranteed on a field less than 32 cars, no-time field that was running either a 10.5 slick or a 275 drag radial, no wheelie bars, no full-tube chassis. $5,000 free entry no-time shootout for the same setup. $3,000 for a run-what-ya-brung shootout that ran on a 26×8.5 slick or a 235 drag radial, no full tube chassis, no wheelie bars. A bag full of numbered poker chips would decide vehicle pairing, and from that moment on all hell was gonna break loose on the track, no times shown, just cars and one lit win light per round. And that was only one side of the racing that went down! With weather a concern all weekend long, the OSCA team managed to run a solid race with minimal downtime, and the racers made solid showings. In fact, outside of one racer who had an oil line pop right at the staging lane and a Fox Mustang who lost a taillight right about the 1/8th mile mark, there really wasn’t much downtime to speak of. The spread of the cars was interesting to see: on one hand you have Jason Abele’s Mitsubishi 4G63-powered Mustang that sounded like a ripsaw on nitro using serious boost to it’s advantage sometimes (that’s the first time I’ve seen a Mustang hang sideways at the 100′ mark!) and at the other end you have the monster split-bumper Camaro that gave every cell in my body a good shake when it launched off of the line.
If you’re interested in seeing the OSCA in action for yourself, the remaining races in the schedule are: Beacon on August 6th, Ohio Valley’s North vs. South race on September 16-17, and a return to Beech Bend on November 5th. There was also a race scheduled in October for Lyons Dragway in Indiana, but with the news that the track is closing down for good, we will have to wait until we hear about that date’s rescheduling.
Click on a photo below to check out the action!
