Huffing black smoke at the front end and whit smoke at the back end is Ryan Millican's diesel-powered '66 Chevy II Nova. Yes, that is a Cummins diesel in a muscle car, running in VP Racing Fuels Street Outlaw competition. Millican qualified 12th out of 13 cars, but was still creeping up on the setup leading into eliminations. In the first round of competition on Saturday, he came very close to advancing, but unfortunately lost a tight race with Charlie Cooper who went 4.79 to Millican's 4.88. We look forward to seeing more of the soot shooter throughout the season. The All-Star Nationals welcomed back its second edition of the Sealed Stock Shootout, which pits NMCA Chevrolet Performance Stock racers against G-Force Transmissions Coyote Stock competitors. 2016 CP Stock champion Glenn Pushis had a great shot at winning the shootout, but a last0minute change to the two-step launch rpm added 1,300 rpm instead of 300 rpm. The change prevented Pushis from advancing to the next round, but all is not lost, as he took a first-round win in Chevrolet Performance Stock over Darren Poole-Adams. On its maiden voyage at the recent Outlaw Street Car Reunion at Memphis International Raceway, Isaac and Adam Preston's beautiful 1969 Camaro ripped off a 4.01. This weekend, Isaac drove it to a 3.96 to qualify third in Mickey Thompson Radial Wars, won first round of eliminations with a 4.05 and is readying for today's second round of eliminations. The brothers built the car's 25.2 chassis at their shop, Next Motorsports Race Cars, before installing a BES-built 540ci big-block Chevy and twin 88mm Precision turbos. An RPM Transmissions-built Turbo 400 helps put the power down, and the Preston's use Holley EFI to dial it all in. With Isaac in the driver's seat at NMCA races and Adam in the driver's seat at other races across the country, this team will be worth watching in the months to come. VP Racing Fuels Xtreme Pro Mod standout Steve Summers may not have very many passes on the Bickel-built and 2016 Camaro-bodied Pro Mod he debuted last year, but he made a 3.82 and 216 mph 'repeat, 216 mph look like a walk in the park in qualifying, and for anyone who missed it, he did it again in the form of a 3.83 and 216 mph on the way to a win in the first round of eliminations yesterday. Summers, who's readying for today's second round of eliminations, nonchalantly told us that his combination consisting of a Jeff Jasiek-built 522 cubic-inch CFE-headed Wedge engine and Garrett Gen II 94mm turbos has always been capable of good speed, so he wasn't surprised, and added that his new Liberty's Extreme four-speed transmission and Coan lock-up converter definitely contributed to this weekend's powerful performance. As always, helping him tune via Haltech are Patrick Barnhill and Jason Lee of PTP Racing. Feeling that his 1969 Camaro-bodied and David Janes Race Cars-built Pro Mod wasn't hooking as well as it could have been, VP Racing Fuels Xtreme Pro Mod driver Jackie Slone and his crew swapped to a different set of Penske shocks valved by Chris Bell early in the weekend, and immediately saw the benefits. After qualifying eleventh with a 4.18, the Michigan-based driver pushed the car powered by a nitrous-enhanced 855ci Buck Racing Engines-built engine to a 3.97 and a win in yesterday's first round of eliminations, and is preparing for today's second round of eliminations. Having bought back his 1969 AMX for a second time, Stockbridge, Georgia's Randy Bennett plans to hold onto the car and return it to street duty next year. Currently, it packs a stroked and poked 390 and Randy runs in the 12.50 index in ATI Performance Products Nostalgia Super Stock. During his first ownership stint, Randy raced in the NMCA back in 1994 in the Street ET category. Now in 2017, he's preparing for a second-round fight here shortly at the All-Star Nationals in NSS competition, and is making a few tuning adjustments to richen the mixture up. The Fiscus/Klugger Racing team's Pro Mod Mustang was revamped in the months prior to the NMCA season opener in Bradenton, and with no time for testing, it's been a challenge for the team to get a handle on the new PLR Hemi power, as well as Josh Klugger getting comfortable in the driver's seat. The team also had very uncharacteristic issues with its now-very-well-known blue Radial Wars Mustang, and failed to advance in eliminations with either car. Here in Atlanta, the twin-turbocharged machines started to come around, but the Pro Mod suffered some tire-shake-induced chassis damage in it's first elimination round appearance. The Radial Wars car faired much better, however, as the team seemingly solved the fuel pump drive cable issue and the Mustang responded with a pair of bracket-like 3.99s in eliminations Klugger is now headed to the third round. https://youtu.be/b88TjpbdwYo We've had plenty of high-flying, wheels-up action this weekend, and Dwight Ausmus has been looking at the sky all weekend in his Pontiac Firebird. The Boninfante Racing NA 10.5 driver reached an all-time high in the second round of eliminations today and proceeded to pedal the car several times while trying to bring it back to earth as gently as possible. The wheelie lasted nearly to the eighth-mile, and while he may have lost the round to Leonard Long, Ausmus wins the style prize for the day. While Detroit TrueTrac Nostalgia Muscle Car driver and Local 73 sheetmetal worker Mike Slaviero worked 2,7000 hours last year and could only race at a couple NMCA events, he has five marked on his calendar this year, beginning with this weekend's race. Fighting headwinds, his 1976 Grand Prix and its 461ci Pontiac engine delivered him to an 11.61 on his 11.50 index, and Slaviero advanced to the third round before losing on a double breakout. After breaking the carbon fiber driveshaft under his Camaro in the second round of qualifying yesterday, ARP Nitrous Pro Street driver John Trobiani scrambled to replace it, and Doug Skinner from Proformance Racing Transmissions repaired the resulting damage to his Proformance Racing Transmissions-built Turbo 400. All of the hard work paid off, as Trobini is headed to the final round against Jeff Rudolf and the Rudolf's Sleigh Nova. For final round results, click HERE