THE 6TH GOODGUYS NOSTALGIA NATIONALS RACE REPORT

ST LOUIS – Hello race fans! Hoping all things are well with you and the fall season is treating you fairly.   The racing gods again shined upon the Allstar Dodge Challenger while attending the 6th Annual Goodguy’s Nostalgia Nationals at Bowling Green Kentucky’s Beech Bend Raceway Park. This was the 4th and final race of our season.

The car’s remarkably consistent performance resulted in lowest event ETs for the weekend and another victory for the team.   After sizing up the competition and with the tune up knowledge gained in Michigan a few weeks earlier, Jake set the weekend’s objective to run fast and consistent but without carnage.  Again this weekend, the format offered a modified “Chicago Style” road to the finals where the cars with the two lowest ET’s from each qualification round go head to head in the final round on Saturday night to determine the event winner.

The first qualification run on Friday night demonstrated the car’s “out of the box” strength with a solid 5.81 s / 242.28 mph pass landing the team in 1st place after that round.   The track’s surface proved to be a limiting factor in Jake’s tune-up decisions for Saturday’s round 2 as the car was on the edge of breaking the tires loose for the first 100 ft in the first run.  Over powering the track has several consequences… poor ETs and increased chances of engine damage due to excessive RPM.  Assigned the left lane this time, we went to the starting line with plans to repeat our 5.81 sec first round run with Jake’s best predictions for current weather conditions.

The weather conditions were slightly improved from Friday evening’s but the track was proving to be much the same as we observed other cars’ struggle to get good grip off the line. The car again showed its strength with slight tire shake between 60 and 330 ft but Jake didn’t lift resulting in a nice solid run in the low 5.9’s with good speed and no engine damage.  Jake’s primary concern was keeping the tires from breaking loose and “catching it” if it did before the engine RPM went off the charts causing damage.   A more conservative but solid 5.91s / 242 mph pass kept the team in the number 1 qualifier spot after round 2.   In fact, the Allstar Dodge Challenger was the only nitro car in the 5’s up to that point with eliminations up next.

In the final (eliminations) round Saturday evening we had lane choice and chose the right lane against Kevin Lennon’s Shake and Bake Plymouth Arrow.  Startup and burnout were normal and again the car sounded good and strong with plenty of nitro vapor in the air.   At the light, Jake mashed the pedal, the car went straight down the lane in the grove resulting in a winning 5.910s / 242.98 mph win and our 3rd event win of the season.  In consideration of all the variable at play, the car ran amazingly consistent over the weekend with the last two runs nearly mirror images in ET and speed.

Videos from the Goodguy’s Nostaglia race event are available below.

Interesting Note: On the Run 2 video below, if you look out the right window you can see Jake’s competitor get a half car length lead on him early in the race.

Run 1: https://youtu.be/oP_Qz5X3cbY

Run 2: https://youtu.be/PbK7wijasGM

Final Round: https://youtu.be/WVORMuiyMSE

We’d like to thank Mr. Jeff Jerger for his crew help at the race and videos you’ve watched. We’d like to thank our great sponsors for their support this race season: All Star Dodge Chrysler Jeep, HotShots Bar and Grill, AMT Racing Engines, Vital Signs, Kodiak Equipment, Vinyl Images, Nu-Way Construction, Reese Kittle, and David Zientara Racecraft.