The opening round saw Davis immediately get out of shape off the launch in the left lane and veer right, narrowly missing the starting tree before crossing the center line for disqualification, while Division III champ Donnie Peden motored on to advance. “The tires shook. I can’t really tell you why it happened; my car is usually flawless,” said Davis, who lives not far from the Commerce, GA, track. “I’ll get it out of the trailer next week and take a look at it, but right now I don’t know why it did that.”
Folse edged Billy Vaughn and his Knoxville, TN-based ’92 Camaro in round one, then received a starting-line gift from Shepherdsville, KY’s Aaron Glaser in round two when he went red by just one-thousandth of a second in his ’68 Camaro. The win earned Folse an important bye in the third round to reach the semi-finals. “That really helped us,” he said. “It was shaking this morning, but still winning, so when we got the bye we calmed it down and that sped it up and made it smooth.”
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the ladder, last-place qualifier Troy Jr. was mowing through the competition in his five-year-old Vanishing Point-built truck with the smallest engine in the race, a 497 cubic incher originally built for Pro Stock action back in 1986 by Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins. Troy, from Northeast, MD, initially defeated the 2006 GTO of Leonard, MI’s Keith McPherson in round one, then got by Harpers Ferry, WV’s Ronnie Proctor, who went red in his ’02 Mustang. In round three, he benefited from another redlight, as Scott Cozzali left a little too early in his Mastic, NY-based ’55 Chevy.
That set up the semis, with Folse going up against defending Division I champion Steve DeRosa in only his second race outing with a new Rick Jones-built 2006 GTO, and Troy facing Peden and his’06 Cobalt, put together last year by Jerry Bickel.
After gaining a narrow .003 advantage off the start, Folse ran 6.996 at 191.16 mph against a 6.98 dial in against the 7.548/180.00 on a 7.53 dial by DeRosa to eke out a .005 margin of victory at the top end.
“I dumped at the end when I shouldn’t of, I looked over two or three times and I couldn’t see him there,” said DeRosa, who runs a 762 c.i. Sonny Leonard engine backed up with a Select transmission. “In hindsight I shouldn’t have done that; I didn’t realize the race was that close. Now I know why, when I’m running my big motor, people say they never see me until I go blowing by.”
Folse agreed with DeRosa’s analysis. “I think we’d have both been dead on and it would’ve really been tight, but I saw him lift and when he lifted, I lifted. He ran a really good race, but that’s the advantage of coming from behind. It was tight and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
In the second semi-final round, Peden got away first, again by just .003, but wound up breaking out by .010 with a 7.180-seconds pass on a 7.19 dial. In the opposite lane, after dialing in at 7.82, Troy put together a nearly perfect 7.827-seconds pass at 174.75 mph.
“Everybody that’s with me here is putting forth a great effort and everything is going really smooth,” Troy said before the final. “I have all the faith in the world in this truck. It does the same thing every round, time after time.”
Despite the loss, Peden, owner of Country Motors Trailer Sales and presenting sponsor of the Dart Dash, said, “I’m not even upset; it was that good a race. When we come here, the thing is that we have the best of every division, so it’s a tough deal all the way through.” With 622 cubic inches of Reher-Morrison power under the hood, the Edinburg, IL-based racer said his car was very consistent all day long, but that also had a lot to do with the Atlanta track surface, which he called “unusually good” this year. “You hardly had to change your dial-in; none of us did.”
For the final round, Troy showed up with 7.82 written on the window, while Folse sported 6.97 as his dial-in number. Troy left first in the left lane with an impressive .005 light, followed by Folse with a not-so-impressive .063 reaction. “I messed up on the light a little,” Folse later admitted. “It got a little overcast and he got out on me and I had to hit the override and make a judgment call and in the end it paid off.”
It did, as Troy broke out by .008 after truckin’ through in 7.812 seconds at 175.02 mph, against the .001 breakout by Folse, who put together a 6.969-seconds pass at 196.53 mph.
“I knew I was good on the tree when I left and then about a thousand feet I could see he was coming, but I didn’t think he would catch me,” the 22-year-old Troy explained. “He didn’t pass me and I was real close and just broke out by eight thousandths. I feel like I have nothing to keep my head down about at all. Some people might not understand that when you’re trying to judge a car that’s going 30 mph faster than you, at the other end it’s a tough job.”
Folse certainly understands. “I knew I had a bad light from what was happening. I was just lucky that he couldn’t lift on me. That was one advantage of coming at him quick, he can’t lift or I’ll pass him. So it went our way.”
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