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Sunday Coverage | NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals

Posted By: Ainsley Jacobs
After three days of testing, tuning, qualifying, and more, it all comes down to today at Rockingham Dragway as the NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport races to its conclusion. 
 
Racers in the heads-up and index categories move into eliminations to narrow the field down to champions in each category. The last racers standing in each class head to the Winner’s Circle to collect a Victor award and crack a cold beverage in celebration.
 
While those racers racked up points in the season’s championship chase, an elite eight of the quickest competitors from the Dodge // Mopar Hemi Shootout graduate to today’s HHP Racing Hemi Quick 8 where they battle for modern Mopar bragging rights and a trip to the Winner’s Circle.
 
For updates on the final day of action from North Carolina follow this page and our social channels.




We're getting ready to kick off eliminations today at the NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport North America here at beautiful Rockingham Dragway. Stay tuned for more news and updates as the day unfolds.


Following easily in the footsteps of his legendary father Todd “King Tutt” Tutterow (left), Ty Tutterow’s (second from left) 2023 NMCA VP Racing Lubricants Xtreme Pro Mod season is off to a great start. Campaigning Tyler Jenkins’s 1957 Buick-bodied Pro Mod, Tutterow started with a win at the season opener in Florida and has already wheeled his way to the number one spot in qualifying this weekend with a 3.647 at 205.48 mph run. While Tutterow is the lucky guy who gets to let go of the button, he credits his success to his crew for doing a great job maintaining the 4.9-inch bore space Noonan engine, built by his family’s WYO Motorsports. Also on board the Buick are Menscer Motorsports front struts and JRI rear shocks, along with a Lenco transmission, FTI torque converter, Tutterow’s own Ty-Drive converter drive, Red Line Oil fluids, and Hoosier tires. Tutterow’s qualifying performance entitled him to a bye run in round one of eliminations, and he’s hoping to maintain his momentum as the day progresses.


Thanks to some prompting from Joe and Becki Cram, Jim Betz decided to join in on the NMCA Edelbrock Xtreme Street fun and built an absolutely incredible Cadillac ATS with which to do so. Together with his crew chief, Craig Spuhler, Betz commissioned Watson Racing’s Kim Mapes to assemble the all-steel showpiece and special care was taken to keep the Caddy as stock-appearing as possible, both inside and out. Between the frame rails sits a small block Chevy engine that’s been stroked out to 413 ci and outfitted with a direct-port nitrous oxide system capable of adding roughly 600 horsepower. The guys also added a top-of-the-line Turbo 400 from the experts at M&M Transmission with a matching M&M shifter and a Mark Williams rear end. The result is a car that drives incredibly smooth and incredibly straight, and Betz is loving every second of the shakedown process. He worked hard to get the combination dialed in this weekend with a best run of 4.98-seconds so far, but there was a touch too much power in the tune-up at the start of eliminations and, sadly, the car smoked the tires right off the line.


Dan Fletcher, the NHRA’s second most winningest driver before John Force, is gracing the NMCA with his presence this weekend and running his Micro Strategies-backed 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 in the aptly named Micro Strategies Super Stock category. Throughout his storied career, the multi-time world champion has earned an incredible 106 wins with his Camaro. The Chevy was purchased new from the factory by his late father, Tom, and it has won more NHRA events than any other vehicle in the series’ history. This morning, Fletcher picked up an easy first round win and will continue on through eliminations as the day progresses.



The NMRA and NMCA combined to face off in three special shootouts on Saturday at the NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport and each racer went all in on trying to get the win. In the NMCA Muscle Car Mayhem Nostalgia Muscle vs Nostalgia Super Stock battle, the last match-up featured two NSS cars both running on a 9.50-second index and it was Brent Wheeler who took the win over Bill Boomhower. In the cutthroat Sealed Stock All-Start Shootout, it was NMRA versus NMCA up until the final round where NMCA took a clean sweep with two GM cars from the Chevrolet Performance Stock category left standing. Ultimately, Keith Vaughn (pictured) turned the win light on in his lane with his 1987 Chevrolet Corvette while competitor Scotty Duncan had to settle for second in his 1985 Chevy Camaro. Meanwhile, in the NMRA vs NMCA Open Comp All-Star Shootout the final pair consisted of the classic NMCA MagnaFuel Open Comp Chevy Camaro versus NMRA ARP Open Comp Ford Mustang battle. In a double breakout scenario, NMCA’s Cody Poston picked up the win with a four-thousandths of a second margin-of-victory while NMRA’s Bill Wittenauer was relegated to the runner up spot.


The future is now in NMRA/NMCA competition as the popular Jr. Street class has made its official debut this weekend at the 15th Annual NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport. So, what is Jr. Street? Simply put, it’s a new class that allows teenagers to make a seamless transition from the Jr. Dragster class to “big car” competition. The Jr. Street class allows teens to make eighth-mile runs with a parent or other licensed adult in the car. One of the first to take advantage of the new class is 15-year-old Jaden Dietsch, who happens to be the daughter of Holley EFI Factory Super Cars competitor and trailer salesman Jason Dietsch. A student at Edgerton High School in her hometown of Edgerton, Ohio, Dietsch didn’t set any speed records with her 60-mph Chevy Spark, but she did have a lot of fun making her first competitive runs. “This is awesome,” Dietsch said. “It’s a lot of fun, and it's even better that I get to do it with my dad. He’s a great teacher.”

 


16-year-old Alex (right) built his first engine and called Bill Trovato (left) of BTR Performance to put it on the dyno, but Trovato was so impressed with Alex’s drive and initiative that he not only invited the teen to start hanging out at the shop to learn but also to come with him this weekend to his very first drag race, too. Alex has been busy crewing for Trovato, who campaigns his Edelbrock LSR-headed and BTR Performance-built 465 ci LS-powered 2010 Camaro SS in NMCA Edelbrock Xtreme Street. This weekend, the men put the car into the top spot of qualifying with a 4.543 at 153.43 mph pass. Trovato changed from a carbureted setup to Holley EFI mid-season in 2022 and has been collaborating with Dale Cubic, Marty Zimmermann, Brett Miller, David Mitchell Jr., and John Costello to get the CID intake set up properly for the new configuration and seems to have it sorted out.


Reigning NMCA ARP Nitrous Pro Street champion David Fallon Jr. has made a few minor changes to his 2002 Chevy Camaro and is refining the setup incrementally but making progress overall as clearly shown by his number one ranking on the qualifying sheet this weekend by way of his 4.267 at 168.48 mph trip. Pushing plenty of SpeedTech nitrous through his Pat Musi engine and M&M Turbo 400 transmission and out to a Merillat Racing rear end with a Strange Engineering center section, Fallon has been going quicker and faster on each run as he slowly ramps up the power.


Looking more like a bracket car than an NMCA Dart NA 10.5 entry, Joe Clemente has been having a surprisingly good weekend after a disappointing “driver error” in the final round of the previous race. Clemente made two runs during Thursday’s testing with his 25.1 SFI-certified 1993 Fox Body Mustang where he ran 7.79 and 7.80-seconds in the quarter-mile, then he went 7.80 again on Friday. Going into the start of eliminations, Clemente topped the qualifying order with a 7.738 at 177.24 mph blast thanks to a new combination of Boninfante clutch discs in his Liberty five-speed. As always, Clemente credits his success to relentless work and the talents of his team, including crew chief Bruce Blair, engine chief Ed “Cash” Bamond, and his son/transmission specialist, Carmine Clemente.


After the NMCA season opener in Florida, Jeff Rudolf (far left) gifted his “Ghetto Sleigh” Larry Jeffers Race Cars-built and 1969-bodied Camaro with a new raised cam 548 ci Hemi engine from Pro Line Racing. The latest and greatest technology came with the bullet, of course, and Rudolf’s tuner, Brandon Stroud (second from left), has been hard at work squeezing out every ounce of power possible from the ProCharger-supercharged combination via the FuelTech FT600 engine management system. Gathering data under different conditions has been critical for the team, and Rudolf is glad he made the smart call to come out early and test on Wednesday prior to the race. As a result, he’s been deadly consistent all weekend long and settled into second on the qualifying sheet with best run of 3.678 at 203.53 mph. Coupled with the 0.007-second reaction time he cut earlier, too, Rudolf is ready to hurt some feelings once eliminations begin today.


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