“Take 2”-wide at ZMAX

Timothy Fletcher | October 20, 2018

Stock: Terry Taylor

The last east coast race of 2018 has now come and gone as we visited the beautiful ZMAX dragway for the 2nd time at the Carolina Nationals. What looked to be an event that would have a lot of D1&D2 racers excited for, turned into somewhat of a chore to attend, thanks to Hurricane Florence & Michael. With 3-4″ of rain forecasted on stacking day and people already recovering from literally feet of rain, NHRA again extended deadlines and offered credits to competitors that didn’t show up, deja vu all over again from the dreaded Maple Grove. Friday brought us (2) time trials, which had class eliminations counting as the 2nd hit for the stockers. Saturday sportsman would be run down to the finals, leaving no “fillers” on Sunday for the pro show. From what the race looked like and could have been in the days prior, the weekend actually turned out to be an all around good event. Now its off to the west coast for the final 2 events of the year before its tear down, freshen, upgrade and build back up for 2019!

I would say it was definitely Terry Taylor’s weekend in the Stock Eliminator category after scoring his 1^st ever national event win and ending the day with two perfect reaction times. Taylor qualified in the #5 spot with a very fast F/SA Corvette and was dialed 10.88 in the final to the 9.94 of Anthony Fetch. As Fetch swapped feet, he blew the tires nearly off the vehicle and couldn’t salvage the run with a .027 light. Taylor noticed he had a country mile of room and backed out of the gas for the victory after his 2nd consecutive .000 light. Super Stock had a couple seasoned veterans on the D1 circuit battling it out with Herbie Null Jr. in one lane and Joe Lisa in the other. Neither of these drivers were particularly stellar in the reaction time department with a .030 and .054, and with only a bulb separating them, Null had the advantage out of the gate and was able to make up the difference at the finish line for his 5th win. On the scoreboards both of these drivers were about 5 hun over their dial ins killing et.

Late on the tree and under your index is not a good way to make a final round lap in a bracket race, and Tom Stalba found that out when he did just that in the Super Comp final against Corey Manuel. Manuel with an outstanding spread of lights didn’t disappoint in the final with a .010 then ran it down to a 8.930, while Stalba snugged the stripe up to .001, he was .045 on the tree and 6 thou under for no win light. Seeing as both of the Super Gas finalist were from D3, I think its safe to say Joe Fisher knew who Phil Smida was and what he has accomplished. But Fisher was only behind .001 when they left the starting line (.017 to .018), at the end Smida took the stripe (by more than he wanted) and ended up running 9.885 on the 9.90 index. Fisher was in it to win it and “let” Smida take the stripe as he ran on the good side of the index at 9.912 for the win.

Art Hodges gets his 1st title in his 1st ever Comp Eliminator final round over Danny Holt. Holt was off to the races, literally, first with a .048 light and up against a 8.59 index, Hodges was away shortly after with a .029 light chasing the 7.81 index. With Hodges down .09 and Holt down .11 coming into the final, Hodges had the qualifying and CIC advantage and was able to catch and stay ahead of Holt until the end for the win light.

Ronnie Proctor is no stranger to the winner circle as of this year as he takes home his 2nd Top Sportsman Wally, both coming in 2018. Proctor was able to get away with a .043 light as Jackie Robinson was .034 and experienced some problems running 6.896 on the 6.68 dial, Proctor noticed the lead and got rid of almost 15 mph on his 6.63 dial and still stayed out front. Another driver who is really no stranger to the winner circle is Anthony Bertozzi who got the win in Top Dragster over JB Strassweg. Bertozzi was the #1 qualifier at 6.01 and was dialed exactly that in the final, but would only wait 6 hun as Strassweg was dialed 6.07. Bertozzi had the tree at .019 and rode that the entire 1320 for the .0146 MOV, running 6.030 @224.21. And unfortunately for Strassweg, he picked a bad time to miss it with a .030 light and a 6.093 on track.