Holley LS Fest 2018: Friday Night Drifting And The Grand Champion Drag Racing Laps


Holley LS Fest 2018: Friday Night Drifting And The Grand Champion Drag Racing Laps

With the weather proving to not be an issue for Friday nights, the crowds started to pour in later in the afternoon to see the shows that were taking place, and for the last bit of Friday night, it boiled down to two spectacular scenes: the drift pit in the oval track of Beech Bend Raceway and the Grand Champion drag racing scene that went down after dark. Drifting speaks for itself: Take one rear-drive vehicle that is now sporting eight cylinders of the General’s latest and greatest, and throw it around a laid-out course with both the reckless abandon of a teenager who got the keys to a real-deal hot rod, and the precision of a surgeon. You may not like drifting as a sport and that’s fine, but there is always a reason to enjoy watching someone hanging the tail out for distance without taking out a crowd of onlookers in the process. With that joke made, yes, there was an S-197 Mustang convertible making laps and no, nobody was struck.

If you found the drifting to be a bit immature for your taste, then the Grand Champion group is probably more your flavor. The class is meant to showcase vehicles that can do everything well, so in addition to the 3S Challenge that would take place on Sunday and the autocross courses, each car had to make a lap down the quarter mile to earn a time. Keep in mind that most of these vehicles are designed to turn corners, not to send traction rearward, so this turns out to be more of an equalizer than you’d think it should be. And with one hour for lapping, it wasn’t a surprise to see cars making two or three hits on the strip to dial out the formula. Mike DuSold’s monster Camaro just about gave all three of us a heart attack in the tower on it’s first pass down the track, with the taillights hopping all over the place as the twin-turbo beast put up a hell of a fight. Even with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, DuSold was the fastest man in the group that spread out from a swapped Jeep Comanche pickup through established players like Brian Finch.

If you missed our last gallery from the 2018 Holley LS Fest, CLICK HERE to check it out!


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