It was the Race that Almost Wasn’t – With rain, and plenty of it, forecast for the weekend, the 8th Annual Bassani Xhaust NMRA Ford Nationals at Silver Dollar Raceway in Reynolds, Georgia looked like a washout. Friday teased racers and fans with a half-session of qualifying before the sky opened up, and Saturday was spent huddled in trailers or back at the hotel with the Weather Channel on in the background. Though she doesn’t care too much for quals, Mother Nature is still a race fan, though – she cut the NMRA a break on Sunday, with clear skies and a long, long day of Mustang racing.

With just a single hit on Sunday morning, qualifying for Turbonetics Pro Outlaw 10.5 was wild and wooly – no sixes were to be found, but Bradenton winner Conrad Scarry managed to scratch out a 7.027 for top spot on the ladder, and five of the twelve in the field broke the 200 mph barrier. In eliminations, the first round was marred by a spectacular top end crash and fire that totaled Mike Brown’s ’93 Mustang, but thankfully let him walk away more or less unharmed. The second round saw Scarry find his six-second tuneup, and with an odd-field single in the semis, he ran it out to another six and into the finals. There he met eighth-qualified defending class champ Tim Essick, who won the Silver Dollar event the previous year. At the tree, Essick got the jump, .026 to .070, but Scarry ate up the lead by half-track, and despite a top-end charge that put him through the traps with an extra ten miles an hour on Scarry, Essick didn’t have enough track to catch up, with Scarry winning his second consecutive event, 6.941 to 7.151.

DiabloSport EFI Renegade drew another deep, quality field in Georgia, just as it had done at Bradenton, with 14 cars vying for top spot in the single round of qualifying on Sunday. Bob Cook, showing more and more comfort behind the wheel of the Sutton S197, was quickest, posting an 8.508 for the top spot on the ladder. The Mongoose turned his pole position into a trip to the finals, trailering Larry Hourcle in the first round, taking the competition single in the second, then winning a close-run match against Alton Clements in the semis. Working his way through the field to meet him was defending class champ Brian Mitchell, who had qualified fourth and gotten past Bradenton winner Dave Guy and Bradenton runner-up Chris Van Gilder before taking a semi-final holeshot victory over Ed Thomas to earn a trip to the finals. Mitchell may have known his mid-sixties pace wasn’t going to get it done against Maximum Bob, and he hit the tree hard; too hard by .018, going red in the process and handing the victory to Cook.

Though the conditions would prevent anyone claiming the “first in the sevens” bounty in BFGoodrich Tires Drag Radial in Georgia, that didn’t make it any less of a dogfight, with no fewer than 14 cars in the lanes on Sunday. John Kolivas immediately demonstrated that he was once again the man to beat, running a full two tenths ahead of the rest of the field with an 8.172 in qualifying. Matt Bell had the misfortune of a first round pairing with the Iceman, and the odd-field quarter-finals gave Kolivas a single, which he used to knock off a “practice” 8.125. In the semis, he found an even-quicker 8.122 to dispatch Jason Lee, giving Kolivas his second final-round appearance of the young season. There, he’d pair with Bob Kurgan in a rematch of the Bradenton season-opener, and once again, Kolivas would take the win, with Kurgan running a slowing 10.768 to Kolivas’ 8.205.

5.0 Magazine Real Street was the quickest class able to get in more than a single hit in qualifying, and Jim Breese was the quickest of the bunch, running 9.769. Tim Matherly, Mike Washington, and Brian McCormick all found single-digit passes as well, rounding out the top half of the seven-car field. The opening round of eliminations rewarded Breese with a competition bye, and a 9.757 in the second against Kevin Scott advanced Breese to the deciding round. On the other side of the ladder, number-two-qualified Tim Matherly was looking for a rematch of Bradenton, where he defeated Breese in the finals. After driving around a Shawn Johnson holeshot in the first round, Matherly took out McCormick with a straight-up 9.762-to-9.804. That left just Breese left to race, and he was away from the tree first with a .035 to Matherly’s .071. Down-track, Matherly had the high card, running the fastest pass of the weekend with a 9.748 to Breese’s 9.811, taking his second event win in a row.

Though the turnout in ROUSH Performance Modular Muscle was down from the typical thirty or more cars at just 17, it still took a .001 light in the two rounds of qualifying for Jim Fitzgerald to earn the top spot on the ladder. Florida winner Reggie Burnette, Jr., Donnie Bowles, and Shane Williams all carded double-oh lights to follow in his wake. Four rounds of racing brought the Mod Muscle field down to the final pair Sunday night, where Tom Motycka faced off against Bradenton’s runner-up Susan McClenaghan. With a slower 12.47 index, Motycka got the green first and was away with a stellar .005 light, while McClenaghan followed with a .019 and hustled to catch up, running against a 10.69 index. At the stripe, both drivers had to stay in it and both ran under, with Motycka’s 12.458-on-12.47 less egregious than McClenaghan’s 10.677-on-10.69 by just one thousandth of a second.

Despite the weather, Hedman Hedders True Street, presented by Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords still found 20 drivers on the street and in the lanes for their three passes on Sunday. After the dust had settled, Stephen Posneau, a rare traveling True Streeter, was king of the hill with an average of 10.277 seconds for his three runs. Larry Waters, Jr., behind the wheel of a total-sleeper ’88 Mustang, captured the runner-up spot with a three-hit average of 10.627.[/QUOTE]