Dallas Recap

The 22^nd stop on the 2017 NHRA Mellow Yellow tour brought us to Texas Motorplex in Dallas, TX for the final AAA Insurance sponsored event, the Fall Nationals. This event always has great racing temperatures with some of the best competition you can have coming out of D4. The race itself was ran smooth and went right along, start to finish. The .90 cars showed their support and had their quotas at over 100%, unfortunately we could not say the same thing about the class cars with Super Stock only having about 70% of the 65. Slate Cummings and Tommy Phillips would be the weekend’s headline going 2 in a row and sweeping the AAA sponsored events. While those 2 veteran drivers are going round after round, young bracket racer Thomas Marlow gets his taste at class racing with his first ever win in their families beautiful flat black Mustang. The following week is a rest week before everyone heads to Las Vegas for one of the best events of the year, the Toyota Nationals and by then we should be able to tell who the 2017 World Champs will be.

Comp: Clint Neff over Will Hatcher

Neff gets his 3^rd National event win in his 8^th ever final round appearance. Hatcher came into the final down -.10 on his original 7.17 index while Neff was down only -.05 on his original 8.29 index, and Neff had Hatcher covered by about a tenth in qualifying so Hatcher knew he needed to take permanent CIC in order to get the win. Both drivers were away clean and green, .033 (Neff) and .021 (Hatcher) but Neff had just too much power and stayed ahead to take the win.

Super Stock: Slate Cummings over Pete Peery

Cummings knocks down his 9^th Wally in back-to-back event wins. Coming off his win at St. Louis a week ago, Cummings was definitely not holding back with a .011 total package in this week’s final. Peery was no slouch with a .021 reaction time and running dead on 3 to his 9.65 dial for a .024 total package but was no match for a .007 and dead on 4 (9.344) by Cummings.

Stock: Thomas Marlow over Jeff Lopez

Marlow chalks one up for tea mustang and gets his 1^st ever trophy in an all factory stock final. Lopez was giving chase with a 9.28 dial in his FS/C COPO Camaro against the 10.18 dial on Marlow in his FS/F Mustang. Lopez was quicker out of the gate with a .047 light compared to the .084 of Marlow but unfortunately couldn’t run close enough to the number at 9.482, letting Marlow around him with a 10.243 et.

Super Comp: Craig Anderson over Ryan Herem

Anderson gets another win for the D4 crew and his 8^th National event win by just .001. Anderson was off the button first with a .019 light to Herem’s .030, at the end of the track Herem might have let Anderson around him running 8.912 @169. Anderson was further away from the 8.90 index at 8.922 but was .001 ahead and took the win.

Super Gas: Tommy Phillips over Jerry Debusk

Like Slate Cummings, Phillips goes back-to-back for his 40^th career victory and 9^th at Texas. With his worst light of the weekend being .019 Phillips shows us why he now has 40 Wally’s to his name. Leaving the line only 5 thou behind Debusk with a .013 light, Phillips made up the deficit and more at the stripe running 9.916 on the 9.90 index. Debusk made a good lap at 9.931 with a .008 light but was .010 behind.

Top Sportsman: Greg Lair over Aaron Philpot

Lair uses a .009 light to propel him to his 2^nd National event wally. Philpot was away first with a .044 reaction time and ran under the predicted 7.04 at 7.014, Lair used that .009 light to go around Philpot slightly before the stripe and get the double breakout win, running 6.485 on the 6.50 dial.

Top Dragster: Shane Eperjesi over Wade Pennington

Eperjesi collects his 1^st ever National event win in his 1^st ever final round appearance. In the fastest dialed cars of the weekend, Eperjesi was given a slight head start dialed in at 6.37, Pennington was dialed in at the class minimum of 6.00. Eperjesi left with a .022 light and ran over the dial at 6.404, Pennington was behind at the start with a .036 reaction time and then drove around Eperjesi to breakout, running 5.965, giving the automatic win to Eperjesi.

Photos By – Auto Imagery