Drag racing season has officially begun anew and it started last weekend in Bradenton, Florida at the Diamond Pistons US Street Nationals. This race serves as the kickoff for so many pro mod and drag radial teams, making it huge in a normal year and it was doubly massive this year. With hundreds and hundreds of cars on the property, large by huge spectator crowds, and performances for the record books, 2021 just got a swift kick in the rear. We’d be remiss if we failed to mention a tragic accident involving track employee Dan “Chaps” Stone who was unfortunately struck by a runaway race car at the top end and did not survive the incident. This happened on Friday night. We raced with heavy hearts for the rest of the weekend but honored the memory of Chaps in the best and only way that we know how. On the track.
In this clip from qualifying you are going to see Craig Sullivan and Jerico Balduf roar down the drag strip and pull side by side power wheelies during the pass. Sullivan’s famed “barn burner” Daytona is a fan favorite at every drag race it attends and Balduf who is always sporting a Batman theme often falls into the same boat.
While Sullivan’s car does not use a lockup torque converter we can see the effect that manipulating the fluid in even a non-lockup has here. One of the things we have lamented about modern door slammer drag racing is the fact that the torque converter has totally killed the clutch. Well, on the plus side, clutch cars never did THIS stuff with regularity and converter cars do.
This was a career best pass for Sullivan and frankly a career awesome moment of coolness as well.
Oh yeah, the Barn Burner is for sale! Wanna go pro mod racing?
Non-Cars.
This is why SEGA is thriving.