Interesting story out of Oregon: car owner Terry Ryan (left) has been friends with driver Dave Fiscus (left, no relation to Kevin) for over 20 years, as the pair met right here in Bowling Green 20 years ago at a Buick event. Despite seeing one another only three times over that 20-year period, when Terry decided he wanted to bring his Mustang to the East Coast and run it in X275, he contacted Dave to see if he’d be interested in driving it. Dave suggested bringing the car out and leaving it at his Cincinnati-area shop and they’d make a run at it, and the pair is encouraged by its performance so far. Josh Lindsey tunes on the Bennett-powered Mustang, which had the second-fastest top speed in X275 during qualifying. Terry told me that it’s a huge challenge to keep the car running well out there in Orgeon as the tracks simply aren’t experienced enough with radial prep to give them a consistent surface, so he’s been flying back and forth from Oregon to Ohio to work on the car. With FuelTech, MSD, and AMS2000 on board to help control fuel, ignition, and turbocharger boost, they are well on their way to making a mark in the hotly-contested class. Fun side fact: Terry owns an NHRA Stock Eliminator class record in EF/SA in a turbocharged 1989 Dodge Caravan, of all things.
This is what it takes to compete at this level.. the baddest Radial Vs. The World car in the world will be sporting a new powerplant for the next round of competition. Mark Micke went for a wild ride in the second round against Tim Kincaid when the engine promptly ate itself at half-track, The crew reports that the explosion was so violent that the transmission was spinning in the tunnel while it was attached to the back of the crankshaft. The Micke/Carter team (along with Andrew Alepa and others) were in the pits thrashing on the car to get it ready to run again. Part of the crankshaft was actually sitting in the catch pan.
Sorry for the late updates.. if you watched any of the live feed you realize that yesterday was a marathon day, and my internet access was nonexistent through most of it. And if you didn’t watch the feed.. well, you missed out on some AMAZING racing with stout track conditions. We finally wrapped up around 1AM and I didn’t get back to my hotel until 2AM. The fifth running of the Outlaw Street Car Reunion will go down in the books as an event to be remembered.
In all my years of covering drag racing, I’ve never seen a thrash like the one I witnessed last evening from the Carter/Micke/Woodruff team. It seemed like their pit area was simply full of willing and able hands, thrashing to get the car fixed from the massive engine explosion seen above. As they had a bye round into the next round of competition,they had to get the car to the line under its own power and take the tree. With the hood off the car and it completed just enough to make that happen, Micke—never one to ignore the show—threw in a burnout for good measure before the team pushed the car out of the beams and back to the pits to continue lining it out for the following round, where they’d face off against Daniel Pharris and Andrew Alepa.. who had been in their pit previously helping to repair the car. What an amazing display of sportsmanship!