It was an amazing weekend of racing at the 2011 PSCA Street Car Super Nationals held at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The cool Nevada weekend was marked by some incredible performances, like the first ever 5-second quarter mile pass on a 10.5 tire and some insane wreckage with cars burning and flying over the wall (literally) in separate incidents. We were there all weekend covering the race live and had a massive viewing audience from the start of the madness on Thursday right through the end of the race on Sunday evening.
Recapping the winners:
Pro Street: In what can only be described as a battle of heavyweights, Mike Maggio and 2011 Shakedown at E-Town champ Jose Gonzalez squared off for the honors in the final round. Maggio’s screw blown 1970 Camaro taking on Gonzalez’s slippery 2006 Pontiac GTO. Maggio had, to the point of the final round run, maintained a dominating presence through the event. He had been living in the five-second zone on nearly every lap from Thursday on, but in the semi-final round the team damaged the clutch in the car and had to thrash to get it prepared for the finals. Gonzalez on the other hand was more of a quiet assassin. He wove his way through his side of the ladder, running consisten numbers and leaning on the car when the circumstances dictated that he needed to. In the end, the clutch proved to be Maggio’s downfall as the scoreboards flashed the win lights in Gonzalez’s lane, the final tally being his 6.00/232mph run besting the 6.73/205mph shot of Maggio. It was the drag racing equivalent of stopping Sherman’s march to the sea about two miles before said sea. Great work by both teams on their consistent performances all weekend!
Outlaw 10.5: The final here was on the anti-climactic side as Bill Glidden singled down the race track in 22-seconds because Mike Murillo’s 1993 Mustang could not answer the bell in the final round. In the semi-final round Murillo appears to suffer a mechanical failure of some sort at the end of his lap and the wound proved to be a fatal one. You cannot run drag races on paper, but Glidden was the major domo of the class all weekend long, qualifying number one, and posting the Low ET of the meet in this category with a 6.54 lap earlier in the weekend. Interestingly, “Bad” Brad Brand’s 5-second small tire lap came in the Pro Street category as his car apparently does not meet class requirements in the 10.5 class. Ray Jaso posted the top speed of the weeked in Outlaw 10.5 with an impressive 219mph shot. Congrats to Bill Glidden for the race win and congrats to Mickey Thompson tires for being the first 10.5 tire in the 5s!
Extreme Drag Radial: Rich Hoyle of Palmdale, California took the win in Drag Radial from the number six qualifying post. He defeated Chris Groves in the final posting a 7.42-second lap to Groves losing effort of 8.14-seconds. In a class that was chock-full of late model Mustang and Camaro bodies, it was cool to see a little shoebox Nova like Hoyle’s ’63 take the cake!
Outlaw 8.5: Contested in the eighth-mile format, the Outlaw 8.5 category provided some great racing action throughout the event. The final played out like it should have with number one qualifier Manuel Figueroa taking on number two qualifier Eric Gustafson. It would be an upset with Gustafson taking the win on a hole shot as Figueroa had some sort of trouble on the starting line, causing him to post a .342 reaction time. Adding to Figueroa’s pain is the fact that he ran a 5.252 to Gustafson’s 5.382. If he had been able to leave on time, the race (seemingly) would have been his. The drag racing gods are fickle!
Hot Street: Mike DeMayo took the win in this class and was one of the strongest runners all weekend, posting the number two qualifying spot. He defeated number three qualifier Don Bowles in the final in a close one. DeMay stopped the clocks with an 8.116 ET to Bowles 8.148-second effort.
Wild Street: San Martin, California’s Jeff Kyle absolutely owned this category for the entire weekend. Kyle was the number one qualifier, low elapsed time of the meet, top speed of the meet, and eventually class champion in Wild Street with his defeat of Idaho’s Jeff Young. Young experienced problems with his car an only ran 9-seconds while Kyle thundered to a 7.61-second effort at nearly 182mph.
Street Challenge: In a class that we love here at BangShift where racers have to run a legit street tire with an actual treadwear rating, Rick Hatch of Riverside, California took the win. Hatch, again on a small, non-drag racing street tire, went 9.56/150(!!) to beat Anthony Smith’s nearly heroic 9.60/148mph shot to the stripe. We cannot even imagine the hours that go into getting the suspension setup right on these babies!
Super Street: A major upset in this category with the number ten qualifier Doug Crumlich upending number one qualifier Wiechman in the finals when Wiechman red light his chances for the win away. By right, Wiechman had him covered, but a -.002 red eye handed Crumlich the win and the check!
Double Index: In double index action, Hank Oliver defeated Jay Schmidt in the finals as Schmidt ran under his 9.60 index, fouling himself out of contention for the victory.
Open Comp: Ron DeHoop of Bellflower, California beat out Henderson Nevada’s Doug Carter for bragging rights and the win in Open Comp.
Mustang Madness: Local Las Vegas racer Justen Spencer defeated number one qualifier Cal Gordon in the finals of Mustang Madness.
Bracket 1: Canadian Jim Low in his dragster defeated Johnny Calvery in his 427ci, 4-speed, 1964 Fairlane in the final round to take the win.
We are happy to report that Rick Snavley and Eric Peterson who both suffered massive cashes at the event are recovering and will (eventually) be back to 100% full health. There were some very scary moments for both men when their individual incidents happened, but the LVMS safety crew handled them amazingly well and their cars protected them as they should have.
Thank You for the great coverage. The annnouncing and video work were great. Chad kicked it off in spectacular fashion. So many cars, so many fast cars, a great event. Congrats to the track crew for keepng things going as rapidly as possible. Kudos to the emergiency crew.
Again, a great package U pt on.
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