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In his first ORSCA appearance this year, Rick Thornton started his slick’65 Corvette in the 12th position after a 4.54/162.49 qualifying effort at Carolina. He had to overcome holeshots by Anthony New, Chuck Ulsch, Jack Barfield and Richard Sexton in each of the preliminary rounds before facing McCrary in the final and that may have contributed to his anxiousness at the line. “It hurts really bad to redlight like that. I was just pumped up and let go a little too quick,” Thornton admitted. “When he bumped in the second light, the flash just made my finger say ‘go.’”
LIMITED STREET
With this third-round qualifying pass on Saturday night, Darrin Hoyle lowered the Limited Street E.T. record to 4.757 seconds. The Taylorsville, NC-based car dealer officially backed it up with a 4.780 win over a tire-smoking Keith Szabo in the semis before defeating Carlton Thompson for the event win with a 4.790/157.48 come-from-behind charge.
“The last two rounds I had a transbrake problem or something because I let off the button and it just sits there. Then all of a sudden it takes off. The last two rounds I had just terrible lights and the guys were out on me, but lucky for me they both had problems and that’s the only reason I won. I ran good, but usually if you don’t have good lights you don’t win,” Hoyle said. “It did it a little (in qualifying) and I thought it was just stumbling so I changed the plugs and it didn’t do it anymore until these last two rounds when it did it worse than ever, so I don’t know what it is right now.”
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A picture tells the story. After strapping a huge .210 holeshot on Darrin Hoyle in the Limited Street final, Tallahassee, FL’s Carlton Thompson started spinning the tires of his 2004 Mustang just as he reached the 60-foot marker and that was all it took for Hoyle to surge past for the win as Thompson slowed to a 5.163 pass at 152.90 mph.
“I thought it was over. I mean, he (Thompson) usually goes down the track every pass and he makes good passes so when I saw him out in front of me I thought it was over,” Hoyle said later. “I was really, really lucky this time.”