Words by Jeff Burk
Photos by Ron Lewis and Joe McHugh

n a sign of the hard times drag racers are experiencing, fewer than 300 sportsman racers in seven classes paid to race at Houston Raceway Park’s NHRA national event. It was a disappointing turnout at a track that is traditionally one of the quickest and fastest tracks on the NHRA tour.

Despite the low car count, the Lucas Oil sportsman racers that did attend offered the cognoscenti sportsman fans of Texas a great show.

Some of the more impressive performances over the three days of racing included a couple of racers in the ultra-competitive Super Stock division. Terry Pearson from Alabama had his GT/CA Cavalier running about a half-tenth under the 9.32 national record when he qualified number one with a 9.272.

Another racer under the national record for his class was Tony Cowell from Texas. His ’81 Camaro GT/JA ran 10.289 on the 10.43 record. The quickest ET in Super Stock came thanks to James Caro and his ’05 Stratus, who qualified with a 8.047 on a 8.03 national record.

In Comp Eliminator C/D record holder Joey Tanksley’s 6.704 qualifying effort was well under his current record of 6.81 and good for the number-one qualifying spot. Ditto for the number-two qualifier, Keith Hall, who booted his D/SM ’05 Cavalier under the 8.35 class record.
And finally in the blown alky FC class number-one qualifier Mickey Ferro became the fourth A/FC into the 5.40 zone with a 5.49/262 clocking.

If you wanted quick and fast racing and some of the closest racing of the event, the sportsman racers at Houston delivered the goods.

TAFC and TAD

More and more, a supercharged car in the ill-named Top Alcohol Dragster class has become a rarity. At the Houston race just 14 dragster teams showed up and 12 of those used an injected nitro engine combination.
Despite the fact that the number of injected nitro cars in the class far exceeded the number of blown alky-powered dragster entries, California-based racer Chris Demke copped the pole with an outstanding  5.269/270.48! 

Defending event champion Bill Reichert could qualify no better than fifth but despite that he successfully defended his ’09 championship. Reichert waded through the 14-car field to a final-round win over o first-time finalist Monroe Guest. His win in the finals was his 21st national event win in 41 final round trips for Reichert, who also has  four National Championships and seven North Central Division championships.