Duanesville, MD’s Richard Sexton (near lane) and Todd Moyer from Pasadena, TX, performed side-by-side burnouts for their final-round meeting at Huntsville. Sexton took the win in what was probably one of his last rides in Gil Mobley’s beautiful ’69 Camaro, as Mobley has a 2006 GTO that should be ready to go for Sexton at ORSCA’s next event, Apr. 13-15, at Carolina Dragway near Jackson, SC.
In the final round, Moyer left with a slight .007 advantage, but Sexton quickly made it up and won with a 4.611-seconds pass at 161.46 mph over the 4.668/162.93 by Moyer in the left lane. “There really was nothing ‘wrong’ with the car, we just couldn’t find the tune-up for this air,” Moyer explained. “Our air where we’ve been racing lately has been 500 to 1,500 feet (ASL), where over here it’s been 2,400 to 3,200 feet, so it makes a big difference.”
Despite putting new tires on before the semis, Sexton said he had his worst 60-foot time of the day against Moyer, so he was happy to pull off the win. “Other than that it went straight on through there with no problems. It wasn’t as fast as we’ve had before, but it was fast enough,” he said. “Nobody was super fast here today, but it was always tight at the finish line every race.”
LIMITED STREET
Perhaps the most anticipated new car on the grounds at Huntsville was Todd Berry’s revamped and rebuilt 1990 Mustang (featured in DRO, Jan. ’07). Straight off the trailer in its first run ever down a track, the twin-turbocharged black beauty went 5.01, which would’ve been good enough to place 5th on the Sheppard Race Cars Limited Street qualifying list. But driver Eric Dillard improved to 4.89 in actual qualifying, putting him second behind Darrin Hoyle and his nitrous-fed, 762-equipped ’69 Camaro, who managed a 4.855/155.12 combination to lead 14 entries into Sunday’s eliminations.
Hoyle and Dillard appeared to be heading for a final-round showdown, as both started with bye runs in the raceday opener, then Hoyle handled Michael Collins in round two while Dillard dumped defending class champion Jeff Cooner. Dillard’s scoreboard showed a time of 4.34 seconds against Cooner, who shut off early, and although the win was never in question the time was tossed out as bogus due to something affecting the starting-line beams.
Hoyle then made a single run in the semis when Carlton Thompson couldn’t make it to the lanes, while Dillard, ORSCA’s 2006 rookie of the year, went up against first-time Limited Street entrant Lamar Swindoll and his nitrous-aided, small-block-powered Mustang. Scoring the upset, Swindoll won with a 5.05 pass as Dillard slowed to 5.25 seconds with top-end tire spin.
Chassis builder Joey Bell watches his handiwork depart in the capable hands of Eric Dillard at Huntsville Dragway. The new car, owned by Todd Berry, attracted a lot of attention from fans and competitors alike at the ORSCA opener, and not only for the impressive numbers it’s already laying down. The hand-built hood, for instance, is a work of art on its own, featuring a perfect fit around the twin Garrett turbos courtesy of extremely complex curves laid out by master bodyman Jason Duggar in Dallas, GA.