TJ Pruitt
After a long day on Wednesday at the K&N Spring Fling Million presented by OPTIMA Batteries which actually bled into the early hours of today, Day 2 began with the much anticipated Young Guns vs. Has Beens one shot shootout.
Sixteen previously chosen young and has been competitors faced off against one another. The team which turned on the most win lights were presented with a check for $8,000 to be shared courtesy of JEGS Performance. The Has Beens are far from “once was” with a number of former world champions and they represented their team well. But after a 4-4 tie, each team chose one driver to break the tie with one more run. The Young Guns chose Gage Burch, while Pete Biondo represented the Has Beens. And by .001, Burch scored a big win for the Young Guns.
Back to eliminations for the American Race Cars Thursday and the survivors of round five moving into the ladder round six were, Jeremy York, Scott Tate, Jason Rich, Scott Richardson, Colby Fuller, Tim West, Sherman Adcock Jr., Tracy Sons, Shane Carr, JR Barclay, Ken Batchelor, JR Hodges, Spencer Massey, Ivey Brannon, Rayce Kidd, and Corey Manuel. Of those, the round six winners were Massey, Adcock Jr., West, Batchelor, Kidd, Hodges, Barclay and Manuel.
Quarterfinals, Hodges took the reaction time advantage over Batchelor. Former Top Fuel pilot Massey took out former world champion Adcock. Manuel bested Kidd and Barclay took the win over West.
Semifinals was a case of packages. I the first, Massey used a .002 reaction time coupled to a .013 over the dial which added up to a .015 package, while Hodges had a .019 reaction time that left him mathematically ineligible. In the second stanza, Barclay used an .008 package to defeat Manuel who was also mathematically ineligible after a .014 reaction time.
Final round, both Massey and Barclay were close in reaction time but it was Massey who has won numerous times in both the NHRA Top Fuel and Top Alcohol Dragster ranks, a man who laid down a dead-on the dial with a “1” to earn his first and just as important Spring Fling trophy in addition to $30,000!
To close out the day, the American Race Cars/Todd’s Extreme Paint Dragster Shootout that was originally scheduled to be run Tuesday, was completed tonight with Rob DiMino taking home to Pennsylvania the beautifully prepared and painted new car.
Million Dollar Friday opens up tomorrow with the event presented by Maytag/Silverstate Refrigeration. One person’s life will undoubtedly change with a win on Million Dollar Friday, joining Jeff Verdi, Luke Bogacki, Randall Reid and Peeps Pennington as a winner of the Spring Fling Million.
MotorManiaTV.com has continued to live stream the entire event thanks to Mickey Thompson and JEGS. They’ll continue to do so for the balance of the event. For all info and results, visit bracketraces.com.
