Keith Szabo’s young son took to cleaning off Dad’s racecar after the rain started just prior to his semi-final match against Thompson. Szabo started 3rd after going 5.009/155.47 in qualifying, then ran eliminated Mark Strickland and Buck Walker in the preliminaries.
Townley, AL’s Jeff Cooner (below) stepped up from 14th to 5th place with a 5.042 in the last qualifying session. On raceday he ran 5.16 in round one to end Kevin Scott’s day and 4.94 to oust number-four qualifier Frank Meshaw in the quarter finals.
EZ STREET
Team owner Dickie Langston (right) had high praise for his driver after Kell Eubanks put his ’86 Mustang on top of the EZ Street list with a record-setting 5.053-seconds pass in
the opening round of qualifying, then backed it up with a 5.10 the next time out. “I knew it was a good run right when I left so I went ahead and grabbed the second kit when the tires were still in the air,” Eubanks said. “I went for it thinking, ‘It’s either gonna’ go or spin, one of the two,’ and it went that time. It was just a great run.” On raceday, Eubanks started with a pair of tire-smoking 6.16s in a first-round bye and second-round win over Danny Griffin, but stepped it up to a 5.08 in s quarter-final win over Darrell Morgan. The incrementals on the record-setting pass were 1.28 seconds at the 60-foot mark; 3.44 at 330 feet; and 5.053 at 143.96 mph at the finish line.
