(Words and photos by Benoit Pigeon) – My first step at an EOPM event is to find out who is there or coming. It’s a great time to take a few pits shots and get with the news. Unfortunately, I quickly found that one racer, Chris Rini who comes from just north of the Big Apple was already packing having found a major problem with his motor. For the rest, upon my arrival, almost all racers had already set up and were getting ready for their first qualification pass. Counting Rini, there were eleven cars entered but a Corvette shows up for Q2 bringing the number of contenders back to 11 for an 8 cars field that would now include five blown motors.
By the time the race was set to start, Ty Tutterow was number one qualifier. Elimination round one was a shocker when Jay Cox, number 8 qualifier ran the first 3.7s of the day. By round 2 it was all nitrous cars, Jason Harris taking Travis Harvey and Cox winning against Weatherford. From that point, the final was on hold until the very few last minutes before the curfew as both racers lost pistons. For each team it was like a 3 fronts race, parts replacement, opponent and time and for awhile, it seemed as if time was running out for both.
On his side, you could see Cox using honing tools on a cylinder while a couple trailers away, team Harris was replacing 3 pistons. Jason has lost many pistons over the last two seasons and the team apparently well experienced with this type of situation showed up first to the line. A few minutes later, it was Jay’s turn to pull his car for the finals. With about two minutes left before the deadline of 11:00pm, the Bryant Cranes sponsored orange team took the win with a 3.77 @ 200 MPH, the best et of the entire night. Three more races are planned before this regional series is done for the 2015 season.
http://www.extremeoutlawpromod.us/ schedule/
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