After battling gremlins that broke a distributor retaining bolt and then the barrel valve on his motor during the semis, Neal thought they had struck again when he heard a pop during his burnout for the final.
“I thought it blew out the burst panel, so I was just gonna’ stage and see if he redlighted,” Neal explained, “but when I left it just took off. It was idling real high and I figured it was going to blow up when I turned it loose. If I’d have known it was going to stay together I’d have really got after it, but when something like that happens it gets your mind messed up.”
Regardless, Neal said he was impressed by Daniels’ march to the win after qualifying outside the field. “I’ve won my share and I’ve lost some, too, but I don’t cry over that,” the veteran stated. “He did a good job over there and I’m happy for him.”
PRO NITROUS
Going into the final round, Terry Housley was cautious about overpowering the Huntsville racing surface, which is exactly what happened to his opponent, Keith Baker.
Housley arrived in Huntsville with one goal in mind—to clinch a spot among the top eight in Pro Nitrous points and ensure he would be eligible for the Battle for the Belts. That he won his first ADRL event was icing on the cake for the driver of trucking company owner T.J. Harrill’s 1941 Willys entry.
“We weren’t expecting this (to win), but after the second round I knew it would take a very consistent car to outrun us,” Housley said. “That’s when I started thinking it might be our day.”
It was far from stress free, however. Like Daniels, Housley was on the outside looking in when the third and final qualifying session began. That’s when his son, Blake, after consulting with Pro Mod chassis builder and veteran driver Tommy Mauney, made a drastic change in the car’s clutch setup.
Housley said he was optimistically cautious about the experimental approach.
“You think you know what’s going to work after going down so many tracks with no trouble, but then you get here and have all kinds of trouble, so you know you have to try something else,” he said. “But you’ve only got one shot left to get in and you really don’t want to do it (change setup), but you do and it works. Special thanks go to Tommy Mauney; he really, really helped us with that.”
Housley wound up starting from the 11th slot after running 4.305 at 171.89 in that final session. After posting an identical 4.1303 as former NHRA and IHRA Pro Mod champion Shannon Jenkins, Montana racer Pat Stoken was granted the number-one position with his all-new McCamis-built ’68 Camaro based on going just .29 mph faster than Jenkins.
