Outlaw Street Car Reunion V was a wild affair…for the last few days Beech Bend has been rocking with the sounds of some of the heaviest hitters out there right now lighting up the strip as they chase down the time while balancing the forces of power and traction as delicately as possible. The weather cooperated (not the normal for western Kentucky at all this time of year) and the temperatures were cool enough that they were never really a factor in the competition. What was a factor was breakage…carnage a-plenty took care of a lot of drivers over the weekend’s course, be it a windowed block, concrete poisoning or good old-fashioned fire. Throughout the week there had been issues, including a couple of the Pro Stock Motorcycle entries blowing out the smoke and oil, and Karri Anne Beebe’s crash on Friday. But Saturday turned out to be even wilder.
The biggest story came out of Round Two at Radial Vs. The World. Mark Micke’s Chevy Malibu and Tim Kincaid’s C2 Corvette met up and at the launch, looked to be a good run. But look at Tim Kincaid’s car in the last photo I got before things went south…notice how it’s climbing up? The bumpers, the blower and Kincaid all got a fantastic look at the sky before the Corvette returned to a four-wheeled stance. But oddly enough, not even a perpendicular stand-up topped what happened to Micke:
Micke’s engine blew up so hard that the transmission was spinning in the tunnel while still attached to what was left of the back end of the crankshaft. While people in the stands were still in shock about Kincaid’s wild run, the amount of smoke coming from the Malibu at the far end of the track was more worrying. Even worse was hearing crew members telling each other to “get the other one ready”. The second the Malibu was back in the pits, all hands from Micke and Jason Carter’s team, plus people from other teams went full flying elbows to thrash to get the car back onto the line for Round 3. Micke was actually his own best friend in that deal, having added a cushion of time due to the cleanup. He had the bye for Round 3, so he took the tree minus all of the front sheetmetal, then came down ready to go for the semi-finals, where he met up with Daniel Pharris, who got him on the ‘tree by .005 in one hell of a run.
We will have plenty of galleries of the fun coming up over the next few days, so stay tuned for more photos. Meanwhile, our congratulations go out to the winners:
Radial vs. The World: Daniel Pharris (Corvette)
X275: Jimmy White
Limited Drag Radial: Daniel Pharris (Lexus RC-F)
Ultra Street: Brian Keep
MX235: George Raygoza
No-Time: Bill Lutz
Mid-West Pro Mod: Jerry Hunt
Mid-West Pro Mod Slammer Class: Tommy Cunningham
Pro Street Motorcycle: Frankie Stotz
6.0 Index: Vince Damsow
7.0 Index: Robert Rodgers
6.0 Index Thursday shootout: Spencer Smith
7.0 Index Thursday shootout: Terry Tarranof
Click on a photo below to check out more footage from OSCR V!
