PTC Radial vs the World was off the chain this weekend with upsets of several big names out early in competition and the turbo cars all bowing out in round three leaving just nitrous and blowers to vie for the win with three racers left in who never won here before, Alex Laughlin, Jeff Naiser and Paulo Giust with Jamie Hancock in as a previous winner representing for the nitrous guys. The Aussie Jeremy Martin exited this round as well in a loss to Laughlin but scored his best run, a 3.904 at 204 to Laughlin’s low of the round 3.787. It will be a happy trip home for Martin and crew for sure after such a great weekend for them. The semis would wind up with nitrous cars and blowers facing off as it should be with Laughlin again going low for the round, earning lane choice with his 3.802 win over Hancock’s 3.812. Naiser pushed the tree against Giust with a .010 reaction and scored the win with a 3.85 as the blower car struck the tires at the hit.Naiser put up a .017 light in the final needing every bit he could beg or steal to try and win. Laughlin was off with a .049 running a pinch slower than his prior round ET, a 3.808 but it was no good as the NRC crew stepped it up with a 3.792 at 197 when he needed it to score his first win here at SGMP in Radial vs the World. “We come out here, every run Kenny made good calls, perfect calls, the car went down the race track as fast as we needed to go. I did my job letting go of the button and steering to the finish line. I can’t thank everybody enough, all my crew and my mom and dad, Jimmy and Annette, they just sitting back waiting for the phone call you know. My most critical round was against that blower car (Paolo Giust) car in the semis, I mean they are all critical, he had run just as fast as I did in the day time. Racing during the day is really tricky, especially with a nitrous car. You need to get all you can down low cause it’s hard to outrun them on the big end so we sacrificed a lot down low to make sure we got down.” – Jeff Naiser
KBX/Precision Turbo X275 was a tough field as always with a lot of cars bunched up in the 4.40’s and a very tricky surface with track temps soaring well over 140 degrees and bouts of rain later in the day. We follwed up with Shane Fisher and Ron Rhodes, John Keesey and several other racers in the class this week. Once in round three everyone who made a run but Kenny Hubbard was in the forty’s with Keesey setting low for that round at 4.439 in a hole shot loss to Rob Goss’ Procharged 2009 Challenger, 4.464. The semi pit Fisher and Rhodes and Goss and Hubbard. This time Fisher would set the 4.430 low ET driving around Rhodes 4.47 with the turbocharged KBX top end charge at 167 MPH. Goss got by Hubbard with a 4.97 snagging a lucky break with bother racers pedaling.Fisher had lane choice taking the right lane but it could not hold the tires and he slowed to a 4.81 at 159, not near enough to stay in front of Goss’ 4.526 at 163 MPH. “My most important round today had to be the finals, all the other rounds kinda go by the wayside when you win, I had my first hole shot victory against John Keesey. It was a total team effort, I never won here before and two in a row after winning the NMCA Indy, two in a row is unbelievable, a dream come true. This race is the epitome of all races, winning here is like winning the Superbowl the best competition comes here, to win here is indescribable,overwhelming with emotion, happiness, joy, it’s hard to put into words” – Rob Goss Crew for Team Goss is Bruce Maichle and Southern Speed Racing’s Wade Hopkins.
Don Lamana earned top qualifier in Pro 275 before running the table in the class with a little lucky from bye runs eventually meeting up with Ziff Hudson in the final. Ziff had struggled keeping his car hooked up but definitely has what it takes to get work done qualifying second in class and scoring a 4.24 in round two eliminations. Pasadena, Texas based Todd Moyer qualified thirteenth and made it trough to the semi finals on a no show bye by Dr Dan Boyko, testing the track surface to no avail to a 5.61 at 91 MPH. Lamana was off pace a bit with his reaction times giving up a lot to Moyer’s .006 with a .055 but drove by with a 4.29 at 191 to Moyer’s 4.46 setting up the final round with Ziff Hudson, Lamana would have lane choice and chose the right lane. Hudson took the advantage at the tree with an .013 light but failed to stick to the track slowing to a 5.10 at 103. Lamana had a little tire shake down track but drove through it to earn the event win with a 4.52 at 191. This weekend’s team includes Crew Chief Matt Larue, Chris Patton and his wife, Mark Michlovitz, Andi, and Tim and Amy. “We created four or five tune ups when we got here because we had not run the car since we put it back together and lucky enough we got enough day time tune up data to use get the car set up. During the day here we were not going to go four Oh’s on Sunday, the track was different every round so it was all about picking the correct tune to go A to B. That was the tricky part you know” We raced who we raced but we beat who we raced, had a couple of buy’s that worked out for us, there was definitely some luck involved because we didn’t go A to B on a few of those rounds either” – Don Lamana