PRO NITROUS
Originally scheduled to be an eight-car field, ADRL officials upped the Pro Nitrous raceday contingent to 16 after 26 teams showed up at Valdosta for qualifying attempts.
Veterans Shannon Jenkins (far lane) and Rickie Smith wowed the crowd at South Georgia Motorsports Park with side-by-side burnouts in the second round of Pro Nitrous eliminations.
Sporting a new look for the new season on his ’69 Camaro, Shannon “The Iceman” Jenkins secured the number-one position, coming ever-so-close to the elusive three-second zone with a 4.005-seconds pass at 186.00 mph in the first round of qualifying. Jenkins stood on his time and skipped round two, but the closest anyone came was the 4.068 by his teammate and current IHRA Pro Mod world champion Mike Castellana.
The opening round of Pro Nitrous was completed before it started raining and Jenkins punctuated it in the final pass of the session with the world’s first three-second pass by a nitrous car in eighth-mile competition. Facing off against Ken Thomas, Jenkins left with a safe .109 reaction time, covered the first 60 feet in 1.017 seconds, reached half-track in 2.666 seconds, and finished in 3.992 seconds at 185.66 mph. Remarkably, it was a far-from-perfect pass, with the Speedtech Camaro veering left, nearly out of the groove at half-track. “We’re real happy with it,” Jenkins said later. “That was something we’ve been working for and it feels real good to get it out of the way.”
Jenkins then went on to one of the marquee pairings of the weekend, facing fellow nitrous guru Rickie Smith in round two, who had ousted Charles Carpenter from the opener. The Iceman left first with a good .037 light, while Smith was way late, leaving .137 after the green in his Dart Machinery-backed ’63 Corvette. Regardless, Jenkins went into tireshake almost immediately, while Smith posted low E.T. of the round at 4.117 seconds, exactly the same number he qualified number eight with.
It was a costly win, though, as Smith burned a piston in the run and had to pull both heads in a mad thrash to prepare for round three against Terry Housley. With just a skeleton crew on hand, though, it looked doubtful he’d be ready in time, but Jenkins and his team pitched in and got the job done with minutes to spare before the semis.
Smith again got treed in the semis, with Housley taking a .040 lead off the stripe in the TJ Harrell Motorsports ‘41 Willys. Housley went into severe tire shake early, however, allowing Smith to zip past for the win. Housley said his team had been battling clutch troubles all weekend and added the left lane developed some bald spots on raceday.
“We were out on him and I knew if we got by that little point there we’d be alright, but we didn’t,” he said. “The car is capable of running 4.05s, but we’re still pleased to get this far. We knew if we ever caught the clutch combination we could win it, so all in all we’re pleased.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ladder, after qualifying 11th Martin dodged a bullet in round one when Rex Kelley redlighted in the opening round of eliminations. “We probably were too relaxed in the conditions we set our car up for,” Martin said. “It was 77 degrees when we left our trailer and 64 degrees when we let the clutch out. We were just too aggressive and blew the tires off. We were very lucky to advance.”
