(Words and photos by Joe Grippo) – A few Fridays ago my brother Dan and I made the trip out one of our favorite Pennsylvania race tracks, Beaver Springs Dragway. The draw to get us to make the 2 hour trek into central Pa were a few rounds of match racing between Dragweek hero Larry Larson all y=the way from Missouri and the Keystone State’s “Master of Faster” Andy Jensen. The coolest aspect of the evening was that Larson and Jensen each brought two big guns to the fight. Larry had his trusty  twin turbo, Mike Moran powered Nova and the amazingly engineered, twin turbo, ProLine powered S10 truck, both squeezed into a long 5th wheel trailer. Across the aisle was Andy’s stacker rig with his Pro Mod Camaro with twin Turbos and another trailer filled with his gorgeous box Nova packing asingle huge hair dryer. Both of Jensen rides had his powerplants underhood. The Novas were to square off first followed by the 5 second pick-up verses the pro mod.

As the sun started to drop, each driver grabbed one of their weapons and headed to the lanes for a single shakedown pass to get some data for the battles to come. Larry went first in the truck and after a smokey burn out, he launched into the humid air, blasting through the agreed upon 1/8 mile finish VERY quickly. While the clocks were turned off, from our vantage point at the starting line, Larry got small…quick! A few minutes later Jensen towed his bad ass Camaro to the line for his test pass. With the waste gates banging and wheels dangling in the air, the pro mod looked every bit a match for the S10. This was going to be good.

After a pop up rain storm soaked the track the track crew worked on the strip and then track owner Beaver Bob called the guys and their respective Novas to come on up and get it on. More huge half track smoke shows in each lane were followed by the glorious sounds of spooling turbos and popping waster gates with flames under the box Novas. Andy Jensen got the jump on Larson and barely held on for the win! The local hero was victorious and place went insane. Again no times but both cars were hooked up and gone, for an excellent race. Check out my iphone video.

We headed back to the pits and couldn’t get near either team as the crowd was scarfing up t-shirts and taking photos with the guys as they tried to ready their fast stuff. Finally the call came to get them into the lanes…then the night sky opened up once again and this time the rain  was too much for the track to come back from. It had cooled down, the fog rolled in, the sun was gone and we were done for the night. Major bummer.

Also running this night was the Mid-Atlantic Street Oulaws circuit which hosts a wide variety of classes from small tire stuff, index stuff and an  Extreme Outlaw almost anything goes deal. Check them out on Facebook or better yet, at a track near you.

The weather may have ended the fun early but any night at the drags is great night in my book!