Randy Walker’s ninth final round appearance overall in 2009 came during the Pacific Street Car Association’s Mickey Thompson Tires Fall Nationals, and now only the formalities remain in crowning Walker the 2009 Hughes Performance Pro Street Champion depsite the fact that this weekend’s Edelbrock World Finals has yet to be contested.

After struggling with the change in track preparation compound used on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s surface during qualifying for the Fall Nationals, Randy and the Walker Racing Group slotted their 1974 El Camino into the third position with an off-pace 6.659 at over 218 MPH.

“It was brutally hot out there, but the track was incredibly sticky,” Walker said. “They changed their preparation methods for this race, so all our data up to that point, especially for the daytime runs, was pretty much out the window. We basically had to start over and re-learn a brand new track, and luckily we were still able to fight our way into the top half of the field.”

Randy Walker’s ninth final round appearance overall in 2009 came during the Pacific Street Car Association’s Mickey Thompson Tires Fall Nationals, and now only the formalities remain in crowning Walker the 2009 Hughes Performance Pro Street Champion depsite the fact that this weekend’s Edelbrock World Finals has yet to be contested.

After struggling with the change in track preparation compound used on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s surface during qualifying for the Fall Nationals, Randy and the Walker Racing Group slotted their 1974 El Camino into the third position with an off-pace 6.659 at over 218 MPH.

“It was brutally hot out there, but the track was incredibly sticky,” Walker said. “They changed their preparation methods for this race, so all our data up to that point, especially for the daytime runs, was pretty much out the window. We basically had to start over and re-learn a brand new track, and luckily we were still able to fight our way into the top half of the field.”

Walker improved slightly to a 6.531 elapsed time in his first round victory over Joe Alsworth, but ran into tire shake once again in his quarterfinal matchup with Scot Sloten. The veteran driver was able to pedal his way to a 6.910 to hold off Sloten’s 7.601, but Walker, crew chief Duane Walker, and team consultant Charles Carpenter were not pleased with their inability to figure out the new track conditions. Under Carpenter’s direction, the team went to work on making a series of changes in hopes of getting the car to make a full pass under power.

The work paid off immediately when Walker ran low elapsed time of the event in the semifinals. His 6.355 at over 220 MPH easily defeated number-one qualifier Mike Maggio’s 7.399 and set up a final round showdown between Walker and Tim Henry, one of Walker’s toughest competitors all year and second-place in the points standings.

In the finals, Walker once again struggled with tire shake after gaining the starting line advantage over Henry’s fuel-injected Firebird and Henry was able to drive around with a 6.440 to Walker’s slowing 6.709.

“We wanted to get the win, but making it to our ninth final of the year was incredible,” Walker said. “Tim was there to take advantage of our struggles this weekend. It’s obvious we had the ability to go low 6.30s but we weren’t able to do it consistently, and he ran mid 40s consistently. He gained a few points on us, but it’s not enough to overcome our lead at this point with only this weekend’s race remaining.”

“We’ve been working all year tuning this thing up and getting faster and faster, so it’s pretty disappointing when you sort of take a step backward like we did a couple weeks ago,” Randy continued. “On the bright side, this gave us a preview of how the track conditions will be when we return for the biggest race of the year, the Chris Alston Chassisworks Street Car Super Nationals V, next month. We’ll get it figured out and will be back to performing like we have all year this weekend in Fontana, then carry that momentum back to Vegas for the Super Nationals.”

Not only has Walker already wrapped up the overall PSCA points championship, but he swept the two sub-championships that were available as well, the Sin City Championship and the Lucas Oil Golden State Championship. These two titles were determined by scoring only the points from races held in Las Vegas for the Sin City Championship and only the points from Fontana for the Golden State title. Walker also already has the 2009 West Coast Hot Rod Pro Street Championship trophy sitting on the mantle.

Despite all that, Walker and crew are still hungry for more.

“It’s been hot all year, and we’re finally going to get into some conditions beginning with this race,” added crew chief Duane Walker. “We’ve already run high 20’s in the heat, so now we’re gunning for low 20’s and maybe even a high-teen. Fontana will definitely be a fast race and we’re looking forward to it.”

With the success 2009 has brought them, it’s hard to imagine the Walker Autoworks team wouldn’t be looking forward to another weekend at the races.

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