Based upon his qualifying performances, Missouri’s Travis Swearingen was the odds-on favorite to win the event but Barklage and his Hemi-powered ’57 Chevy got better with each round of eliminations. The semi-final was a classic Pro Mod matchup with a blown car versus a nitrous-injected car in each round. The quickest nitrous racer was Kansas City chassis builder and racer Terry Murphy taking on supercharger racer Barklage while on the other side of the ladder St. Louis racer and lead fabricator for chassis builder Jerry Haas, John DeFlorian, was matched up against number one qualifier Travis Swearingen.
Murphy’s 4.196 effort was the best ET for a nitrous car for the event, but wasn’t nearly good enough to cover Barklage’s 4.096. DeFlorian spun the tires right off the line against Swearingen and his 6.04 just wasn’t good.
In the finals Barklage knocked the ‘tree down with a .054 reaction time to Swearingen’s slightly tardy .78. Swearingen tried to chase Barklage down, but the hot track surface wouldn’t take the power that Swearingen’s Hemi made and he had to peddle the car and that was all it took. Barklage’s 4.116 easily covered The Junkyard Willys, which slowed to a 4.40 at just 132.60 mph for the loss.
Pro Mod Bike qualifying almost gave the bike crowd the six-second lap they craved from Bristow, OK, racer Billy Schonfield, who qualified on the pole with a stellar 7.167/192.43 lap. That lap was good for both Low ET and Top Speed of the meet for bikes, but Schonfield couldn’t convert that qualifying performance to a win when he had trouble in the final round against Kansas racer Troy Brown. Schonfield ran a shut-off 24.997/24.11 lap to Brown’s respectable 7.518/179.64 winning lap on his ’03 Kawasaki.
Other winners include Jay Doleshal in Pro Street Bike on a Suzuki and Derek Gibson driving his 8.20 index bike. Dwayne Gaines won the 8.90 index bike class. Chad Vaudenberg riding his 2001 65XR picked up the 9,50 index money and Blake Ellis won the 9.90 class on a 2005 Suzuki.
A couple of notable names showed up in the Jr/Sr dragster and Junior Comp racing. Aeromotive owner Steve Matusek’s daughter, Kristen, won the Sr-Jr Dragster division, and in Junior Comp Lauren Thomas defeated the scion of the McGee Cams and chassis builders, Luke McGee.