(Words and photos by Tommy Lee Byrd) – We’ve covered several of Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip’s heads up events in the past few years, and it’s amazing to see how much it has grown. With the track being fully resurfaced, and purses going skyward, this monthly event will continue to grow. Tommy Lee Byrd was on hand for Brainerd’s final Heads Up race of the year and shot a bunch of photos of the day’s action.
The race features seven classes—4.70, 5.30, 5.70, 6.0 and 7.0, which are eighth-mile index classes, as well as 275 Street and 275 Outlaw drag radial classes. We loved watching the wheelstanding Ford Falcon, which left the line at around 8,000 rpm, but it’s also fun to watch the 4.70 cars, most of which feature 600+ cubic inch big block’s on nitrous.
One particular 4.70 car that sticks out as a favorite is David Solomon’s Dodge Demon, which is a fresh build. David’s previous drag truck (built from an ex NHRA Pro Stock Truck) was stolen a couple years ago, and this Demon has been in the works since then. It’s a carbon fiber body with a GPS Race Cars chassis, and a 645 cubic inch Mopar wedge motor. This thing makes killer power, and doesn’t use any performance enhancing drugs—it’s all motor! It’s a killer car and we’re glad to see David back on the track after such an unfortunate deal with his truck.
In the racing action, the drag radial cars put on quite a show, with wheelstands, wild runs and elapsed times as low as 4.50’s on a 275 drag radial. A nice mix of nitrous, supercharged and turbocharged entries made for an diverse field of cars, even if most of them were Mustangs.
Click the link below to see TLB’s gallery of photos from the final Heads Up race of 2014 at Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip.
Looking like at least one pioneering ProMod car there, still with the old SoftSeal paint job and not all modernized. Cool.
Is the yellow 55 an old Charles Carpenter one?