After long days filled with free runs on the track, cars filling the show circuit, and shirts filling with sweat, the event that everybody seemed ready to watch go down at the 2017 Car Craft Summer Nationals was ready to roll: the Midnight Drags. A field of cars would get one run to post a best time up on the board. Once everybody ran their shot, the top sixteen fastest would remain and would shoot it out for the top spot. With Lonnie Grim handling the matchups on the starting line and the folks from Car Craft on the microphone keeping things lively over the speakers, the show kicked off just after sunset.
The top sixteen was nearly an all-Chevy show, with six Novas leading the charge. Among the outliers was Jordan Crosler’s 1997 Mustang Cobra, Wes Butler’s 1994 Trans Am and a 1964 Plymouth Savoy. As the competitors took their first twenty-minute break between rounds, a two-round, hot lap grudge race intermission kicked off between the CC staffers and their rental Dodge Journey and a gold Chrysler 300C that was a late entry into the event. Care to guess how that went?
With each round, Grim came up with new ways of pairing off the drivers. First, the top eight out of the initial sixteen drew poker chips. But for Round Three, there was a problem: Butler’s Trans Am had taken out a piston, so he was out of contention. That left three cars: Doug Flynn’s 1972 Nova, Michael Goodman’s 1969 Nova SS, and Adam Hodson’s 1973 Chevrolet Camaro. Flynn and Hudson paired off and the Nova took the win, and to be a sport Goodman made a solo pass.
In an all nitrous-assisted Nova final, it was Flynn versus Goodman, and though he put up a hell of a fight, Goodman’s 8.03@160MPH to Flynn’s 8.56@161 MPH.
Hated to see the mod motor Mustang and the neo-super stock Mopar not make the finals. But that blue Nova was supposedly only using about 65 percent of its available nitrous oxide.