Thirty-six supercharged Pro Extreme cars made qualifying laps, with Jason Scruggs ending up on top of field in his hemi-powered ‘63 Corvette with a record-setting 3.893-seconds pass at 192.96 mph, the first official ADRL sanctioned eighth-mile pass below 3.90 seconds. Impressively, 14 of the 16 Extreme qualifiers reached “the threes,” with Doug Palmer anchoring the field at 4.021 seconds.
Scruggs was among the first to fall victim to the changing weather, going up in smoke in round one, but still he managed to advance because Palmer had even bigger problems of his own in the left lane. Not realizing he’d redlighted away his chances, Palmer also lost traction at the start and shook the tires hard in his Voodoo Racing Corvette. When he pedaled the car to recover, it suddenly darted left and sideswiped the guardwall several hundred feet down track.
 Doug Palmer out of control. Notice red light in backgroud. |
Palmer classified the impact as “medium, a little more than a scuff, but hard enough to know I hit it.” He estimated 80 to 90 percent of the damage was cosmetic, so after a trip to Illusions Paint and Body for repairs he hopes to be back on track in time for the NHRA race at Gainesville, FL, in March.
Scruggs had a competition bye in round two because opponent Toney Russell doesn’t race on Sundays (he advanced past Bennie McDonald the night before, just before the rain came), and again it was a fortunate twist since again Scruggs broke loose off the launch. That put him into the semi-finals against eventual race winner Neal.
“Basically, we just had too much power and didn’t really know it,” Scruggs explained. “The track is probably a little weaker today, too—and I’m not blaming it on the track—but the combination of both of them put us behind the eight ball there and finally I took a bunch out of it to where I thought it would go a 4.0 and give us a chance at winning, but I just took too much out and instead it went a .14.”
Scruggs didn’t take much consolation in setting the E.T. record in qualifying. “Well, I’m happy any time I run good, but still I like to run good consistently,” he said. “So we’re pleased to run an .80, but we weren’t too good on raceday and that’s what it’s all about. We just shot ourselves in the foot today.”
The Pro Extreme final featured Neal, who used a pair of holeshots to get past Quain Stott and Hernandez before beating Scruggs, and Thomas Patterson, who outlasted Bil Clanton in a first-round pedaling contest, had a competition bye in round two when Danny Rowe was unable to stay the extra day, and scored a tire-shaking semi-final win over Todd Tutterow after Tutterow suffered a small engine explosion off the launch.
Neal advanced with great lights all day before meeting up with Patterson (far lane) in the Pro Extreme final.
Neal again left first in the final, gaining a .016 advantage off the line, then laid down a 4.096-secs run at 173.61 mph to Patterson’s early shut-off 4.637/120.50 combination. Neal’s speed was down a little because his Don Stroud-owned ’53 Studebaker pitched its blower belt shortly before the finish. “I saw it fly off at about 500, 600 feet and I was leaning forward hoping he wasn’t gonna’ pass me. I just wanted to get there. I didn’t have a clue where he was at; I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him. It was a big relief to see that win light come on,” Neal said.
