The Saturday morning program will remain the same with the third round of index qualifying beginning at 8:30 a.m. The first class out at 8:30 will be Nostalgia Super Stock with Q3 and class round 1 combined into one round. First round of eliminations for VP Racing Lubricants Xtreme Pro Mod will be at 11:30 a.m., followed by Q3 of the rest of the heads-up classes.

No categories are being cut from the revised Saturday program. We will finish our Circle D Specialties True Street, Dodge // Direct Connection Shootout, Brackets 1 & 2 and the HHP Racing Quick 8 presented by Scoggin Dickey Parts Center in Saturday's program. A full schedule is below.

We thank everyone for understanding the importance of running this event through completion, and we look forward to celebrating winners, and cementing championships and points standings.

QUALIFYING RESULTS HERE

ELIMINATIONS RESULTS HERE

After suffering a mild stroke, National Parts Depot presented by Horsepower Depot F.A.S.T. FAST Class racer Julie Pennington is back behind the wheel of her 1969 Corvette here at the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance. This event last year was the last time she had been at the wheel of the car, but she has fully recovered and is back with a BES Racing Engines 514-inch big block Chevy under the hood and a Dan Sharp Turbo 400 in the tunnel. Her offspring Jordan wasn’t a very good son during eliminations, ending her weekend early. The Pennington family, and we’ll include Ryan VanDusen in the mix, even though, Jordan just today learned the proper spelling of his friend’s last name, is a huge proponent of the F.A.S.T. FAST class at every event in which the class appears.  


Visiting the car show area during the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance unveiled Bob Kemp’s 1968 Dodge Charger R/T. The 1968 Charger was a huge sales success for Dodge. The new design, which some would say resembled a Coke bottle, with its muscular overtones and wide rear quarters really hit the right note for those with a need for speed. Plus, with hideaway headlights and the choice of a 440 Magnum or 426 Hemi, it’s no wonder Chargers of this era command a premium on the open market, and are super desirable among muscle car fans.  


Looking at Kevin Schweizer’s 1980 Mercury Zephyr, you quickly realize this isn’t your mom’s wagon. Well, it could’ve been, but these days, instead of taking you and your siblings to school, it’s haulin’ the mail down the track, while being equally at home on the street. The car is no stranger to drag and drive events, and fits right into Circle D Specialties True Street here at the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance. Under the hood is a 7.3 Godzilla built by Mike Curcio combined with a pair of Forced Induction Solutions’ 72mm turbochargers, tuned via a Holley Dominator EFI by Brian Friedentag using Fuel Injector Development injectors. Behind the Godzilla is a Larry Roedel Powerglide with a Circle D converter and a 9-inch rear end with a Strange Engineering center section and 3.50 gear. Derek Bivins from Bivins Race Cars did the car’s 25.5 chassis, and also the turbo’s hot and cold side. Although the Zephyr has been as quick as 7.80s, the Saturday’s weather conditions kept him in the 8-second zone for an 8.98 average to win True Street.    


Two-months after his popular ’49 Merc was damaged in a fire at Cecil County Dragway, Craig Sullivan is back in VP Racing Lubricants Xtreme Pro Mod class, and it doesn’t appear he’s lost a step. Sullivan’s El Mero Mero entry has been repainted in all black, but the extent of the changes is not just cosmetic. “The car got a new firewall and all new wiring and electronics,” said Sullivan. “There was a lot of work done to get it back on track but thankfully, it's not like getting used to an all-new car.”  Chassis builder Larry Jeffers did all the repairs and applied the new paint while Ron Settles performed he flawless airbrush work. Sullivan, who went to the semifinals in the first two NMCA races, showed no signs of rust as he made it to the final round in Indy.”

There are so many clean race cars here at the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance, but one thing you can count on is that every race car’s lower quarter panel area will be filled with rubber. Sadly, Rick Alford’s 1969 Nova was looking really clean in the pits, but when we talked to him, he relayed to us the reason the quarter panels were so clean is that the engine broke the oil pump shaft on the return road during test and tune. “I had oil pressure on return road, but I looked down right before I got to my pit and the oil pressure was at zero,” Alford told us. All of his friends here at the track wanted to remove the oil pan and find out what the issue was in an attempt to get the car back in competition. However, Alford chose to play it safe and he’ll get the car back home to diagnose the issue. The Nova’s combination consists of a Mike Duke 427 small block, a Coan Turbo 400 transmission and a Dana 60 rear end filled with a Moser spool and axles, and 4.10 gears. Alford has owned the Nova about five years after picking up the car as a roller. He and his brother Bob actually started putting the car together for someone else, rewiring it, adding new paint, wheels and tires, and the like, before becoming the car’s title holder. Aside from the engine and transmission, the Nova is outfitted with a Norman Bountant 12-point roll cage, Calvert Racing split mono-leaf rear spings and Cal-Trac bars, Santhuff front struts, Aerospace brakes, Mickey Thompson 275/60s on a pair of RC Components 9-inch wheels out back, and Weld V-Series wheels up front. The car’s fastest pass is a 9.97 at 135 mph, and it weighs 3,400 pounds with Alford in it.    


For 32 years, Larry Geddes remarkably rowed the gears of the manual transmission in his Mustang, but he began to feel as though he was not reacting as quickly as he needed to with the clutch. After considering all of his options, he decided to move to a Dynamic Mighty Mite C4 automatic transmission last year, and told himself that it could take a little time to get used to his new set-up. Geddes, however, was a quick study, and earned a win with an 11.60 over tough opponent Tom Hoffman in MagnaFuel Open Comp with his new automatic transmission at the Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels NMCA All-American Nationals & Xtreme Sports Festival in August at Summit Motorsports Park in Ohio. “I will tell you, I was really happy about winning with the new automatic transmission,” said Geddes. “I had run a manual transmission for so long, and that is what I knew, so the win with the automatic transmission meant even more.” It is worth noting that the modest Geddes is currently qualified in the third spot out of nearly 40 racers, with a .002 reaction time, in MagnaFuel Open Comp at the 23rd Annual NMCA World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and is soon heading into the first round of eliminations today.


Flyin’ Ryan Bell has a lot of new components in his Dart N/A 10.5 1976 Corvette for the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance. The biggest thrash for Bell and the crew was all the work it took just to be here. He tore up several components the last time out, so he is thankful for a couple new sponsors he has on board. CP Carrillo is a new sponsor, and that really helps from both a component standpoint and a development aspect. As an engine builder and owner of FPS, a relationship with a piston manufacturer is sure to pay dividends. Jim Craig from Weldon has been working with Bell developing a fuel system capable of supplying the Corvette’s 416-inch small block with enough fuel to take on the N/A 10.5 class’ heavy hitters. Adam from A-1 Transmissions has been working with Bell on a 2-piece bolt-together converter capable of competing with the stick cars within the class, while Scott and Frank Parks from Neil and Parks is working with Bell on reducing parasitic drag using lightweight gear sets and rear end components. With a Dart block and heads, a CFM carburetor, Bullet custom cam, and Jesel valvetrain additions, Bell landed in the fifth qualifying spot, and that was just on the second full pass after all the recent changes.   


Cindee Hall, who competes in Erson Cams Nostalgia Muscle presented by World Products, and her partner, Doug Poskevich, who competes in Nostalgia Super Stock, spend a lot of time talking about racing at their home in DeLand, Florida. They bounce ideas off each other, and continue to come up with ways to win. As a result, Hall is currently in second-place in Erson Cams Nostalgia Muscle presented by World Products points, and Poskevich is currently in fifth-place in Nostalgia Super Stock points. While they were both hopeful coming into this weekend, Poskevich is sidelined with a hurt converter, so he is supporting Hall, who is qualified in the twelfth spot with a 12.79 on a 12.75 in her She-nanigans Falcon and is preparing for today’s first round of eliminations.


There is another battle brewing for the championship in the Dart N/A 10.5 class between Leonard Long and John Langer. Long came into the event as the championship leader with 2,405 points, thanks to a pair of victories in St. Louis and Bowling Green. Langer (pictured) has managed to keep the race close with a season-opening win in Rockingham and a runner-up to Long in St. Louis. Langer came to Indy needed to make up 185 points which is approximately two rounds of competition. During qualifying, Long took his ’95 Mustang to the top spot with a 7.775 while Langer managed to keep the battle close with a 7.826 for the No. 2 spot, which puts the deficit at 195 points. That’s important for Langer because had he fallen more than 200 points behind, he’d need to make up three rounds during eliminations.


Tim Prieur had one goal as he headed to Indy for the World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance and that was to maintain his spot in the Top 10 in Erson Cams Nostalgia Muscle. Prieur didn’t pick up the points battle until mid-season, but he quickly made up for lost time with a runner-up finish at his home event at U.S. 131 Dragway in Martin, Mich. Prieur went to the final at that event and followed with another crucial round win a few weeks later in Norwalk. Coming to Indy, Prieur was clinging to the tenth spot, 65 points ahead of No. 11 ranked Jeff Kowalczyk and just 195 points behind ninth place Geary Bates. Priuer’s bright red ’73 Charger is one of many head turning Mopar entries that regularly appear at NMCA events. The car is fitted with a 512-cid big block Chrysler that is fitted with components from Edelbrock and Trick Flow. The car can run in the 11.20s but this week, Prieur is entered in the H/NM class where he qualified in the ninth with an 11.785 on the 11.75 index.


Here to support the Suncoast Performance 8.60 Street Race class at the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance, Scott Hasty’s Candy red metallic 2011 Mustang GT features a RPG-built 5.2L with a Whipple Gen5 3.8 supercharger paired with a Finish Line Performance-prepped 6R80 with a Circle D converter. Along with all that power, getting the car to the 8.60 range is further aided by a plethora of Team Z Motorsports suspension and chassis upgrades. This race is the car’s maiden voyage, and Hasty has had help from Alternative Auto’s Lidio Iacobelli when it comes to tuning the car using HP Tuners software to the point where Hasty is mostly tuning the car on his own according to weather and track conditions.     


For Dart N/A 10.5 racer Dwight Ausmus, he is steadily learning what the clutch wants when it comes to tuning it according to weather conditions. On one pass when he turned it loose, the clutch bogged the engine, so he made a few adjustments to arrive at some consistency, and ran a 7.83 and then a 7.84 during qualifying here at the Red Line Oil NMCA Muscle Car Nationals World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance. Ausmus and the crew know today is going to be a marathon with the condensed schedule, but they’ll keep working on the car to go rounds.   


Coming into the NMCA World Street Finals presented by Chebrolet Performance many of the championships in the NMCA Red Line Oil Drag Racing series had already been decided or were close to being decided but one notable exception is the Scoggin Dickey Parts Street Warrior class. Coming into the final event in Indy, the Street Warrior title is a two-horse race between Mike Winters and Keith Vaughn, who were separated by just 15 points at the start of the weekend. Following Friday’s two qualifying runs, Vaughn sits in the No. 3 spot while Winters is fourth, which narrows the gap to just 10 points. Ironically, both racers ran identical 10.124 elapsed times on the 10.10 index, but Vaughn ran the number first, so he gets the higher qualifying position. Should the results of qualifying stand, Vaughn would need to advance one more round than Winters in order to secure the title.


For history buffs, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park is one of the oldest and most historic tracks in the country. In 1958, a group of 15 Indianapolis area businessmen and racing professionals invested $5,000.00 each to fund the development of what would become Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The group purchased a 267-acre farm about seven miles from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and developed a multipurpose auto racing facility. Constructed with assistance from the NHRA, the drag strip was the first of the three courses to be completed, with the facility’s first event held on the strip in the fall of 1960.  In 1961, the iconic NHRA U.S. Nationals moved from Detroit to Indy, where it has been ever since. The NHRA purchased the entire facility in 1979 and has continued to make improvements ever since. The newest development is the construction of a new timing tower and media center which is scheduled to be completed next spring.


Rodney Kaekel was adjusting the control arms for his cool 1968 Camaro yesterday to ensure his car powered by a 396 cubic-inch big-block Chevrolet would get down track in timely fashion. Kackel, of Hartford, Michigan, is competing in Micro Strategies Stock and is qualified in the eleventh spot with a 10.97 on an 11.55 out of 15 racers going into the first round of eliminations today. His father, Jim Kaekel, also competes in the category, but in his Oldsmobile 442, and he is qualified in the tenth spot with an 11.05 on an 11.70.