[8D] What a year at The Pure Stock Drags! Wild, wet, wacky, windy, and even weird...but still wonderful! A new entry record was set: 153 cars, 8 of them Studebakers. That's not a record number of Studebakers, but close: In 2003, we recorded 9 Studebakers in competition. The usual throng of Studebaker devotees were all over the facility; 'way over 100, I would imagine.
I'll have the Official Results from Co-Promoter Dan Jensen in a week or so, and they will be used to prepare a report for Turning Wheels.
So the following notes from the event must be deemed unofficial for the time being.
First, here are the Eight Studebaker entries, in no particular order, and how they fared in the Saturday Shootouts:
John Raab and his 1963 Lark Regal "most-of-an-R1"/Flightomatic won their shootout against a 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator 351.
Richard Poe and his remarkable 1963 Lark Custom 2-door R1/4-speed won his shootout by beating fellow SDCer Peter Sant in Peter's R2/Powershift Avanti in the first two races.
Art Copeland from Atlanta GA in his fresh R3 Avanti elected to not participate in the shootouts because he was sorting the car out and didn't feel it was consistent enough to pose a serious threat. (However, when he saw his would-have-been competitor 396/350HP(?) 1969 Malibu SS 396 miss several shifts during by-runs, Art had second thoughts!)
Ted Harbit, driving his own 1963 Lark Custom 2-door R2/4-speed "Stude Tomato" won his shootout against Roger Doehring's beautiful red 1966 Olds 442 hardtop, tri-power/4-speed. (Interesting trivia: Roger and his 442 were also matched against Ted in the 1999 Pure Stock Drags, the second year we attended the event, when Ted was driving The Plain Brown Wrapper.)
Ted was also driving The Plain Brown Wrapper at this year's event, but they lost their shootout against a nice 1969 396/375HP 4-speed Malibu SS396. The Wrapper's clutch was slipping in practice Friday, [V] so Ted elected to not practice with it Saturday before the shootouts, to "save" it. Even so, it then started acting tricky during launching, and undoubtedly contributed to one red light in the 2-out-of-3 matchup. [xx(]
Chuck Kern and his 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti lost [V]their shootout to a 1968(?) GTO when Chuck red-lighted one round. That threw the contest to Round Three and the GTO's driver cut an excellent light, somewhere around .010, which Chuck was unable to overcome when he got underway a split-second later.
Doug Tjapkes and his 1963 R2/Powershift Lark Regal 2-door lost their shootout against the hottest hot-shoe Ford driver there, Tom Artes(?) in his 1969 Mustang MachI SCJ 428. Actually, Tom and Doug weren't supposed to be paired, but were done so through a computer glitch; Tom had qualified much faster. Tom and Doug discussed it and Tom agreed to let Doug win the first round, but then Doug accidentally red-lighted the first round(!), handing Tom the win!
The weather was a certain factor: There was light rain or drizzle most of Friday morning, but it blew off and they had the track dry enough and cars racing by noon. However, it stayed cooler and windier than it had ever been all day Friday; folks were huddled in sweatshirts on the bleachers and there was a strong, cold headwind facing all the competitors as they challenged the strip on Friday. This gave everyone cool, dense air...but handicapped them with a headwind and cooler tires and track conditions than would be needed for optimal racing.
Saturday dawned brighter and a little warmer for the shootouts, with almost no wind. There was an excellent spectator crowd Saturday, important for Dan and Bob ($$$) to continue the event.
Weird stories abound.
For example, consider John Raab's shootout against the Cougar Eliminator. The Cougar won Round One fair & square. Round Two went to John a
I'll have the Official Results from Co-Promoter Dan Jensen in a week or so, and they will be used to prepare a report for Turning Wheels.
So the following notes from the event must be deemed unofficial for the time being.First, here are the Eight Studebaker entries, in no particular order, and how they fared in the Saturday Shootouts:
John Raab and his 1963 Lark Regal "most-of-an-R1"/Flightomatic won their shootout against a 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator 351.
Richard Poe and his remarkable 1963 Lark Custom 2-door R1/4-speed won his shootout by beating fellow SDCer Peter Sant in Peter's R2/Powershift Avanti in the first two races.
Art Copeland from Atlanta GA in his fresh R3 Avanti elected to not participate in the shootouts because he was sorting the car out and didn't feel it was consistent enough to pose a serious threat. (However, when he saw his would-have-been competitor 396/350HP(?) 1969 Malibu SS 396 miss several shifts during by-runs, Art had second thoughts!)
Ted Harbit, driving his own 1963 Lark Custom 2-door R2/4-speed "Stude Tomato" won his shootout against Roger Doehring's beautiful red 1966 Olds 442 hardtop, tri-power/4-speed. (Interesting trivia: Roger and his 442 were also matched against Ted in the 1999 Pure Stock Drags, the second year we attended the event, when Ted was driving The Plain Brown Wrapper.)
Ted was also driving The Plain Brown Wrapper at this year's event, but they lost their shootout against a nice 1969 396/375HP 4-speed Malibu SS396. The Wrapper's clutch was slipping in practice Friday, [V] so Ted elected to not practice with it Saturday before the shootouts, to "save" it. Even so, it then started acting tricky during launching, and undoubtedly contributed to one red light in the 2-out-of-3 matchup. [xx(]
Chuck Kern and his 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti lost [V]their shootout to a 1968(?) GTO when Chuck red-lighted one round. That threw the contest to Round Three and the GTO's driver cut an excellent light, somewhere around .010, which Chuck was unable to overcome when he got underway a split-second later.
Doug Tjapkes and his 1963 R2/Powershift Lark Regal 2-door lost their shootout against the hottest hot-shoe Ford driver there, Tom Artes(?) in his 1969 Mustang MachI SCJ 428. Actually, Tom and Doug weren't supposed to be paired, but were done so through a computer glitch; Tom had qualified much faster. Tom and Doug discussed it and Tom agreed to let Doug win the first round, but then Doug accidentally red-lighted the first round(!), handing Tom the win!
The weather was a certain factor: There was light rain or drizzle most of Friday morning, but it blew off and they had the track dry enough and cars racing by noon. However, it stayed cooler and windier than it had ever been all day Friday; folks were huddled in sweatshirts on the bleachers and there was a strong, cold headwind facing all the competitors as they challenged the strip on Friday. This gave everyone cool, dense air...but handicapped them with a headwind and cooler tires and track conditions than would be needed for optimal racing.
Saturday dawned brighter and a little warmer for the shootouts, with almost no wind. There was an excellent spectator crowd Saturday, important for Dan and Bob ($$$) to continue the event.
Weird stories abound.
For example, consider John Raab's shootout against the Cougar Eliminator. The Cougar won Round One fair & square. Round Two went to John a
We've got to quit saying, 
BP
Comment