Ulsch later revealed he had a little trouble getting stopped after his win over Blackmon when his car’s rear brake pads came loose. “I hadn’t pulled my chutes all weekend because it’s a quarter-mile track and we’re only running an eighth, so there was always lots of room to stop. But my pads were going and we didn’t catch it and they got kicked out the back,” he said. “Luckily the pistons didn’t pop out so I was able to stop the car with them and we had just enough time before the final to pull the brakes off Richard’s car and put them on my car.”
Moyer, meanwhile, eliminated teammates Neil Hawkins and Ken Rainwater to reach the big-money round. “It’s so hot out there, the track is tough, real tough, and we got the bad lane all day after losing lane choice in the first round. I think the left lane is better, a lot smoother, so when we lost lane choice we just did the best we could with what we had,” Rainwater said after the semis.
In the final, Moyer cut an awesome .005 light to Ulsch’s still-impressive .039, but the Texan’s ’92 Camaro lost its grip on the track going into second gear, allowing Ulsch to post the win in 4.74 seconds at 160.74 mph.
Todd Moyer (near lane) got away first in the Outlaw 10.5 final, but already was losing traction as he passed the 60-foot marker.
“I think the track went from good to bad to worse as the day went on, but it maybe started to come back the last couple of passes; either that or we were just getting better at tuning to it,” Ulsch said. “We had to take so much power out of it just to get started before it went down the track. The first three passes I smoked the tires before it caught up to itself and left.”
LIMITED STREET
Defending series champ Jeff Cooner (shown) took the top spot in Limited Street qualifying with a 4.98/158.11 in his turbocharged 2000 Cobra that marked the only four-second run in
the class all weekend. Keith Szabo was second at 5.09 in a ’93 Mustang, followed by Darrin Hoyle, Mike Collins and eventual race winner Thompson in a twin-turboed ’04 Stang.
The Limited Street crowd also had trouble navigating the slick Montgomery surface with the best run in eliminations being Eric Dillard’s 5.07 in an opening-round bye. Thompson got his race-winning effort started with a first-round victory over fellow Floridian and Mustang driver Ronnie Padgett. He then came from behind off the start to beat Mike Collins, but left first against Dillard in the semis and held on to win while Dillard encountered traction trouble.
