Almost a week removed from the richest eighth-mile race in history and the biggest payday of his career, Steve Kirk Jr. savors his $60,000 Automatic Pro Mod win over longtime nitrous racing rival Mike Hill last Saturday night at Carolina Dragway.

“I’ve been to a lot of races, but that one topped the cake, I want to tell you; that was the real deal,” the speed shop owner from Monroe, Georgia, said. “I thought it was pretty cool me and Mike going in there for the final and I think that’s the match up everybody wanted to see.”

It was a race in danger of not even happening, however, as the 833-cubic-inch, Fulton-built monster residing under Kirk’s hood was down on power in two cylinders after his semi-final win over Ronnie Gardner. That necessitated removal of the right cylinder head and replacement of all four pistons on that side of the motor.

Almost a week removed from the richest eighth-mile race in history and the biggest payday of his career, Steve Kirk Jr. savors his $60,000 Automatic Pro

Mod win over longtime nitrous racing rival Mike Hill last Saturday night at Carolina Dragway.

“I’ve been to a lot of races, but that one topped the cake, I want to tell you; that was the real deal,” the speed shop owner from Monroe, Georgia, said. “I thought it was pretty cool me and Mike going in there for the final and I think that’s the match up everybody wanted to see.”

It was a race in danger of not even happening, however, as the 833-cubic-inch, Fulton-built monster residing under Kirk’s hood was down on power in two cylinders after his semi-final win over Ronnie Gardner. That necessitated removal of the right cylinder head and replacement of all four pistons on that side of the motor.

Hill, along with track officials, graciously agreed to wait more than 90 minutes for Kirk along with crew members Danny Vaughn, Harold Peters and Richard Stone to get the job done and deliver what the standing-room-only crowd was there for.
   
They eventually witnessed Hill leaving first with a .009 reaction time in his Fulton-powered ’07 GTO, barely ahead of the .017 by Kirk driving Michael Hornsby’s ’63 Corvette, but 4.022 seconds and 180 mph later, it was Kirk crossing the Carolina finish line first, edging Hill’s 4.047 pass by 17-thousandths of a second.

“We really didn’t change a whole lot all day long, but we were hoping to get a three-second run there in the finals,” Kirk admits. “It was definitely there; the track was perfect.”

It also marked the first race Kirk has entered in 2010, with his last appearance coming last fall in a rained-out ORSCA event at Steele, Alabama. His next outing comes this weekend with the recently formed Outlaw Drag Racing Association at U.S. 19 Dragway in Albany, Georgia.    

“There just hasn’t been a whole lot of Automatic Pro Mod races around here lately, but I’m hoping this will stir things up a little and people will start doing them some more again,” he says. “It was really something (at Carolina Dragway) with all the spectators, the teams, a couple of cars went 3.90s; I mean, you expect that kind of thing at an ADRL race, but to see it there, it was just a really, really cool race.”