2009 ADRL VALDOSTA - SAME DAY COVERAGE
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SATURDAY FINAL ELIMINATIONS - HAMSTRA, HALSEY, GLIDDEN, PROPHIT AND GAHM WINNERS AT SOUTH GEORGIA MOTORSPORTS PARK
Upset victories, first-time winners, record-breaking performances and yet another overflow, record crowd were the highlights of the ADRL Hardee's Georgia Drags at South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP) on April 11-12.
Jason Hamstra (Pro Extreme), Jim Halsey (Pro Nitrous), Billy Glidden (Flowmaster Extreme 10.5), Matt Prophit (Pro Extreme Motorcycle), Brian Gahm (Extreme Pro Stock) and Robert Vogler III (Pro Junior Dragster) were winners in their respective classes.
Pro Extreme
While veterans like Jason Scruggs (3.78 seconds, 201.16 mph) and Frankie Taylor (3.77 – 202.36) were grabbing the headlines in Pro Extreme with their 200 mile-per-hour plus runs down the eighth-mile, placing them first and second in qualifying respectively, it was 21-year-old Indiana-born Hamstra's conservative approach that took him into the final round.
His 3.83 – 196.33 mph pass in qualifying had him sitting comfortably in the top-half of the all three-second qualifying field as he began eliminations.
"I try to have a good reaction time and just let the cards fall where they were going to fall," said Hamstra, whose 1968 Camaro is notable for having a semi-automatic transmission, a rarity for the high-horsepower, supercharged Pro Extreme race car.
"I just try to run consistent laps and have good reaction times. That's how we try and win races."
Despite being on the top half of the qualifying ladder, it wasn't an easy route to the final for Hamstra as he first had to deal with Todd "Mr. 200" Tutterow and then veteran Pro Extreme (PX) campaigner Mike Janis.
In the semi-final round Hamstra pulled up to the starting line with Texan Frankie Taylor, who led provisional qualifying in Pro Extreme after Friday night's session, in the other lane.
"We knew that Frankie would be our biggest challenge," said Hamstra. "And I knew it would take a great light to win."
Hamstra was up to the task and hung a huge holeshot on Taylor (.046 to .086) to take the semi-final victory (3.81 – 185.73 vs 3.803 – 201.73) despite Taylor's quicker and faster lap down the eighth-mile.
For the final against No. 1 qualifier Scruggs, who made three straight 3.7 second passes (3.78, 3.73 and 3.72) en route to the final, Hamstra's team didn't waiver from their game plan.
"We didn't try to do too much to it," said Hamstra. "It got a little out of hand in the semi finals so we just tried to make a nice smooth lap (in the final)."
The conservative route proved to be the right one as Scruggs' new '68 Camaro got out of the groove in the final and Hamstra cruised to victory, using his best run of the weekend (3.801 – 197.45 vs 5.128 – 91.73).
Hamstra insisted that facing Scruggs in the final wasn't as daunting a task as it appeared to be. He was confident that his car could put a big number up on the board, maybe not as quick as Scruggs, but certainly one that would keep him competitive against the two-time ADRL Pro Extreme champion.
"We could step it up too, if we wanted to," said Hamstra. "We wanted to make sure we got down the race track.
"And it worked out for us today.
Just to be safe, Hamstra used another great leave against Scruggs (.023 to .066).
It was the young Indiana native's first career National Guard ADRL Minuteman.
"It's great to win one of these," said Hamstra. This is such a great deal with the ADRL. I want to thank all the guys who run it because it's really cool. It's a lot of fun. That's why we race. We race to have fun."
Despite his final round loss, Scruggs maintains a 210-point lead over Quain Stott (who ran his first career 200 mph pass at the event). Hamstra moves into third in points.
Pro Nitrous
Pro Nitrous racer Khalid (K.A.) Al-Balooshi of Qatar, racing out of the Al-Anabi stables drew first blood on Friday night when he posted a stellar 3.870 -196.33 pass during Friday night's 
qualifying session.
He remained at the point when eliminations began despite an assault by both current Pro Nitrous (PN) points leader Jim Halsey (2nd) and Balooshi's own teammate Mike Castellena (3rd).
However, it was Halsey, who had to overcome several mechanical gremlins early in the weekend, who emerged victorious.
Round one of PN eliminations found all eight winners coming from the top half of the 16-car qualifying ladder, with Halsey posting the quickest and fastest pass of the round, a 3.89 at 193.02.
Despite his first round victory, Halsey said his team was still not comfortable with their success.
"Yesterday (Friday) we had mechanical issues," said Halsey. "Today, the track was just so good…we've never had to deal with a track this good with this (new) car. If we had our old car, we could have literally raced backwards down the racetrack and gone quick."
Round two saw veteran racer Steve Vick emerge as a favorite after his 3.932 -189.12 run put low qualifier Balooshi on the trailer. That run stood as the fastest of the round. Vick followed it up with a 3.94 in eliminating Johnny Pilcher in the semi-finals.
Meanwhile, Halsey struggled with a 5.22 in the second round and an identical 5.22 in the semi-finals that had the current points leader in a precarious position heading into the final round match up against his old nemesis Vick.
"We tried something we had never tried before," said Halsey. "(Despite that) we were pretty confident with the information we got from those last two runs that it would work (in the final round) and it did."
The final found Vick asleep at the switch as he gave away a huge starting line advantage (his .101 reaction time to Halsey's .049). Halsey cruised to a 3.92 vs 3.95 win.
"We made some moves to the car where we thought it would go down a really good race track," said Halsey after the final. "I felt pretty confident. I knew that if we could get it into second gear that it would run a number and that Steve (Vick) would have a tough time keeping up with us. He had a good weekend too. That 3.95 in the final (by Vick) was pretty good."
The win extended Halsey's points lead in the Pro Nitrous class as the tour heads to Memphis next month.
Flowmaster Extreme 10.5
As the weekend began, it looked as though Billy Glidden's domination of the Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 class might be in jeopardy.
The defending champion and winner of the last two national events struggled during testing and qualifying.
"We were actually trying some stuff," said Glidden, who had run a 4.04 lap during testing just days prior to the event at SGMP). "I put some different parts in this thing. Actually, for the first test run on Friday, it showed promise and I stuck with it."
But, as conditions changed over the weekend, Glidden went back to his familiar tune up.
However, conditions changed once qualifying began and it allowed Texan Jeff Naiser to grab the spotlight as well as the top qualifying spot with a 4.10 – 179.59 in his 2002 Pontiac Grand Am.
Also gaining his fair share of attention during qualifying was long-time Glidden rival Spiro Pappas. The ADRL Hardee's Georgia Drags V marked the debut of Pappa's ultra slick 2009 single turbo Pontiac G6.
The event also was the stage for XTF stalwart Todd Moyer to introduce his new ride, an all-black 2004 Chevy Cavalier, the replacement for Moyer's familiar blue Firebird that was destroyed less than two weeks ago at an event in Houston (TX).
Entering eliminations on Saturday evening, Naiser maintained his No. 1 spot, but Glidden had rebounded to take second.
Pappas, who ended up qualified ninth, first sent Naiser and then No. 4 qualifier Jeff Paulk packing setting up a showdown with Glidden in the final.
Glidden on the other hand, barely escaped a first round loss to H. T. Wilson (4.492 to 4.493) then another close call against Moyer (4.32 to 4.35) before putting his best run of the weekend on the board, a 4.08 against Steve Kirk Jr. in the semi-finals.
What was the reason for the sudden turnaround in performance by Glidden?
"Conditions changed on me and we just didn't have any tuning window with the rounds that we needed, so I put all our old stuff back in the car and luckily it repeated, thank goodness," said Glidden.
Glidden easily defeated Pappas in the final with a 4.09 to Pappas' 4.16.
"I had a lot of luck today, going rounds," said Glidden. "But, Spiro did too.
"We didn't really change a lot from the round before (semi-finals)," he continued. "I got pretty gun shy because of the first three runs from today. I just put it, believe it or not, soft to make it a little more driver friendly to get it down the racetrack and since we ran so good against Kirk, it showed that I could help it out a little bit but I just left it alone."
Glidden's victory padded his already huge margin in points heading into Memphis.
Pro Extreme Motorcycle
The Pro Extreme Motorcycle (PXM) final round in the National Guard ADRL has become a regular family affair these days as the brothers Prophit, Matt and Charlie, once again met in the final round.
It wasn't an easy route for either as both men had to fight their way through a record-high motorcycle field of 41 bikes.
Joining the field of PXM regulars for the first time was motorcycle legend George Bryce's Star Racing entry with rider Matt Smith on board. It's early in the development of Bryce's ADRL program and the Georgia-based team spent the weekend getting their bike dialed-in and as a result, Smith failed to make the ultra-tough field.
Also on hand was veteran motorcycle racer Steve Johnson who showed up at SGMP without the typical nitrous assisted setup needed to be competitive in PXM. Despite being several tenths of a second off the pace on each pass down the eighth-mile, Johnson made a run down the track during each round in an effort to better understand what he'll need to be competitive on the National Guard ADRL tour on a regular basis.
While older brother Charlie Prophit, winner of the tour's last event in Houston, was gaining headlines with his world-record qualifying effort (4.212 elapsed time) that earned him the No. 1 qualifying spot, it was provisional number one qualifier Broderick Jackson who emerged as a fan favorite.
Jackson turned his 2006 Walter Robinson-tuned Suzuki into a bracket racer making 4.2-second passes with regularity.
Matt Prophit had his share of problems during testing and qualifying, running nearly a tenth of a second off his usual 4.2-second pace.
"I went with a new engine combination and a change to my nitrous system and it was just really…I had too much," said Prophit. "So we went back to some of our old set up and got going in the right direction, tuning it back to where we need to be.
"It just had too much power."
Despite dealing with the changes in the bike, Matt Prophit qualified in the upper half of the ladder (7th).
As eliminations began, first Jackson then big names in PXM like Ron Procopio, defending class champion Billy Vose and Scott Gray fell by the wayside, setting the stage for a brother versus brother rematch of the final round from Houston.
This time though, it was Matt who made it to the finish line first, as Charlie lost traction 300 feet down the track.
Despite holding his first career Minuteman in his hands, Matt Prophit expressed disappointment.
"We still haven't got the fastest side-by-side pass," said Prophit. "We really wanted to do that, especially after the disappointment in Houston when my bike died on the line."
With his win at SGMP, Matt Prophit now holds a 2-to-1 edge in head-to-head final rounds against brother Charlie.
Yet, Matt still downplayed his first career Minuteman.
"I just ran out of ways to lose, I guess," he said.
Extreme Pro Stock
In only its second event as a full-time class in the National Guard ADRL, the biggest names in big motor Pro Stock racing filled the pits at SGMP and provided the overflow crowd with a full 16-car field of Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) cars.
Ford campaigner Robert E. Patrick Jr. entertained the crowd during testing on Friday with a string of 4.0-second runs, resetting the ADRL XPS elapsed time record in the process.
"This is a better motor than Houston," said Patrick. It makes a little more power. "We could have run a but quicker, but I couldn’t get a hold of the track."
Get that grip on the track come on Saturday when, during qualifying, Patrick stunned the crowd with a 4.059 pass, easily placing him in the top spot for eliminations.
While not as quick, keeping pace with Patrick was Houston XPS final round runner-up Brian Gahm, Dean Goforth, John Montecalvo and Cary Goforth who qualified first through fifth, respectively.
The shocker of the weekend came when Patrick suffered a mechanical problem and was eliminated in the first round by Carl Baker. That opened the door for second place qualifier Gahm.
The Buckeye took on all challengers as he upped the ante in each round, dispatching first Pete Berner and then Matt Hartford with back-to-back 4.0 runs that set up a final round match up against Cary Goforth.
In the final, it was all-Gahm from start to finish as he easily defeated Goforth 4.08 – 177.09 to a losing 4.13 – 175.18.
It was sweet redemption for the Gahm team after losing in the finals at Houston.
"This is just great," said Gahm. "This team busts their butt all day. They kept making this thing faster and faster. We had to adapt to the track today. I'm just so proud of these guys.
Long time Gahm crew chief Cliff Moore kept making changes throughout the weekend in an attempt to keep up with the track.
"We knew the car would run 0's, we just didn't know what the track would take," said Moore. "We were a bit scared of the track. We knew coming into the finals that we could put more to it but we were afraid that if we did, it would bite us. So we just left the same thing that we ran in the semis.
"I know that if Brian does his job that we ought to be in pretty good shape."
Gahm gave high marks to his ADRL experience.
"What about the ADRL bringing us over here?" said Gahm. "That's what I'm talking about. "I can't say enough good things about what this organization has done to make a class for us. I can't wait to see where it goes to, because I know that it's going to get big.
"We had 16 cars here and they were all 'right there.' It was good. It is great drag racing right here."
In Pro Junior Dragster, Robert Vogler III of Lewisville, NC won in the final over local favorite Neil Williams of Thomasville, Georgia when Williams left early and lit the red light.
The event saw two on-track incidents, both of which occurred during testing on Friday.
Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 driver Mike Hill lost control of his '63 Corvette and slide sideways into Ray Conover. Both drivers escaped serious injury, although the damage to their race cars was severe enough to end their weekend.
And Texan Don Wootton, still shaking down his one-of-a-kind nitro-injected Pro Extreme Camaro, made a hard hit into the right wall during testing. His Joe Monden-led team was able to complete repairs in time to make a qualifying attempt, but Wootton fell far short of making the all-three second PX field.
The next stop on the National Guard ADRL tour is the ADRL Memphis Drags II at Memphis Motorsports Park on May 22-23.
The VERSUS HD broadcast of the ADRL Hardee's Georgia Drags V will be on Sunday, May 3 at 3 PM ET.
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Final round results for the ADRL Hardee's Georgia Drags V at South Georgia Motorsports Park, round two of the ten race National Guard ADRL tour.
Pro Extreme – Jason Hamstra (3.801 seconds, 197.45 mph) def. Jason Scruggs (5.128 – 91.73)
Pro Nitrous – Jim Halsey (3.9201 – 191.00) def. Steve Vick (3.953 – 187.57)
Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 – Billy Glidden (4.091 – 176.03) def. Spiro Pappas (4.161 – 178.80)
Pro Extreme Motorcycle – Matt Prophit (4.238 – 170.39) def. Charlie Prophit (11.476 – 34.14)
Extreme Pro Stock – Brian Gahm (4.085 – 177.09) def. Cary Goforth (4.136 – 175.18)
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FRIDAY QUALIFYING - PATRICK NETS PROVISIONAL EXTREME PRO STOCK POLE AND RECORD
Taylor, Balooshi, Naiser and Jackson lead respective divisions
Extreme Pro Stock racer Robert Patrick wouldn’t say that he entered this weekend’s ADRL Hardee's Georgia Drags with a chip on his shoulder, but did admit that he had plenty of incentive to turn up the wick during provisional qualifying.
Joining Patrick atop their respective fields were Frankie Taylor (Pro Extreme), Khalid Al-Balooshi (Pro Nitrous), Jeff Naiser (XTF) and Broderick Jackson (Pro Extreme Motorcycle).
In Houston, the driver of the Purvis Ford Shelby Cobra from Fredericksburg, Va., experienced a less than spectacular season opener and on the day after that frustrating loss, he blew up the team’s brand new experimental engine.
That’s why Patrick came out of the gate swinging this evening as he drove his way to an early lead in qualifying with a 4.072 elapsed time at 176.03. Not only does his run stand as the first day leader of qualifying but also represents a new world record if he can produce the required one-percent back up.
“We made a pretty good run and the conditions that we had here on Friday night were better than what we had to work with in Houston,” Patrick said. “I felt like we had at least a 4.09 in the car considering we ran a 4.08 in testing earlier in the day. We got a little more aggressive with the tune-up and the track came around.
Patrick’s last three runs have been a 4.09 [recorded the day after Houston], a 4.08 earlier today and the 4.072 in qualifying. Could this be a trend with the next run being a 4.06?
“If the air improves, we could possibly run a high 4.06,” Patrick said.
Low budget fan favorite Frankie Taylor fought his way to a 3.762 elapsed time at 202.93 to lead the Pro Extreme division into the second day of qualifications. The run was a personal best for him.
“We knew that there was a 200 in it,” said Taylor. “We ran nearly that fast last week in testing.”
Three-time Arabian Gulf region champion K.A. Baloosi was the head of the class in the nitrous division as the Team Al-Anabi driver thundered to the fastest Pro Nitrous speed in ADRL history laying down a 196.33 miles per hour and coupled with a 3.870, emerged the provisional top qualifying position. Slipping in at second was the Houston No. 1 qualifier Johnny Pilcher with a 3.938 elapsed time at 190.00 mph.
Balooshi is tuned this weekend by noted nitrous legend Shannon Jenkins, who is sitting out the event to concentrate on his tuner's role.
“I wanted to put all of my energies towards making his car get down the track,” said Jenkins. “He has really improved as a driver and we needed to do was give him a fast car. We knew the car was capable of that kind of run.”
Balooshi’s mile per hour mark was faster than the current world record (194.13) held by Jim Halsey. He needs to back up his run within 1% during the weekend to claim the record.
Naiser was the quickest amongst the Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 division as he drove his Pontiac Grand-Am to a 4.106, 179.59 to edge out defending world champion and recent Houston champion Billy Glidden, who turned in a 4.113, 175.96.
Friday’s lone Pro Extreme Motorcycle session created a log-jam at the top of the qualifying list as Jackson rode to a 4.230 edging Ron Procopio’s 4.232. Also qualified in the top three with a 4.23 was Scott Gray (4.236). The two NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle riders Matt Smith and Steve Johnson are unqualified.
In Pro Junior Dragster, Neal Williams of Thomasville, Georgia led qualifying with a stellar .003 reaction time.
Qualifying for the ADRL Hardee’s Georgia Drags V continues on Saturday beginning at 10:00 AM local time. Eliminations start at 4:00 PM.
- Bobby Bennett
FIRST SESSION QUALIFYING
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