“Oh yeah, that’s always a little better,” Kirk said of edging ahead of rival and fellow Georgian Lynch to lead a full 32-car field into raceday. “It’s that turbo versus nitrous thing.”
ORSCA mixed up the run order a little on Sunday, putting the first Outlaw 10.5 session on the track after the 7.0 and 6.0 classes made their first elimination passes. With exactly 100 combined index entries, the track got a good early workout, but several Outlaws still got out of shape in round one, leading to several race-deciding pedaling matches. Jason Collins sideswiped the left guardwall with his ’69 Camaro, but the biggest incident of the day came when Ulsch experienced a large, but brief starting-line fire while staging his Gil Mobley-owned ’02 Camaro.
Sexton began his day with much better luck than his teammate as he had a free pass when Tim Littlejohn
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In a much-anticipated quarter-final match up, crowd favorite Hill took on Kirk, but it was over as soon as it started when Kirk’s Camaro just lurched forward and almost died while Hill posted a 4.55 at 165.62, his best run of the weekend. “I don’t know if I just forgot and left in second gear,” Kirk said later, “but that’s what it felt like.”
On the other side of the ladder, Moyer sent Ed Rice home early from round one, then dispatched Dave Sheppard before meeting Lynch, whose uncharacteristic .117 light cost him the round. Moyer left with a stellar .010 reaction, then put together a 4.57/162.51 combo (marking the only time he ran in the .50s all weekend) to hold off the significantly quicker and faster 4.51 at 169.68 put together by Lynch.
In the semis, Moyer advanced past Bobby Cole, who suffered a nitrous backfire about mid-track in his ’04 Mustang. “The timing didn’t retard on either system, so when it came on it was just, Boom!, and knocked the scoop off,” said Cole, who ran a career-best 4.57 in round two. “No real damage, we’re just going to have to go do some wiring.”
Chuck Ulsch was purging his nitrous system prior to running Josh McClelland in the opening round when a throttle solenoid stuck, leading to a huge starting line explosion that blew his hood scoop sky high and broke a fuel line. With the engine still running and raw fuel arcing through the air in a stream from the ruptured line, a fire broke out scattering onlookers from the starting line. Fortunately, the Huntsville track crew quickly put out the blaze with nearby fire extinguishers, keeping damage minimal to Ulsch’s car.
