Halfway Home in The Ohio State
Race Wrap for the 12th Annual McLeod Racing NMRA Ford SUPER Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park June 11-14, 2015
Santa Ana, CA – NMRA racers and officials danced between rain cells but the last one hit us to end three days of the 
12th Annual McLeod Racing NMRA Ford SUPER Nationals. Half of the NMRA championship categories crowned a winner while the other half went down to the final round before the abrupt end to competition. The remaining classes, Flex-a-lite Open Comp, Detroit Locker Truck & Lightning, Exedy Racing Clutch Modular Muscle, Edelbrock Renegade, Strange Engineering Coyote Stock, and American Racing Headers Factory Stock will complete the final elimination rounds during qualifying at the Nitto Tire NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing at Route 66 Raceway this summer, July 30-August 2, 2015. The Bracket eliminations were completed but the Trick Flow Specialties King Ford Shootout was stopped short, which will be completed during the NMCA World Finals at Summit Motorsports Park, August 27-30, 2015.
In VP Racing Fuels Street Outlaw it came down to the two heavyweights that have been trading blows all season long. Phil Hines drove his ProCharger supercharged 1999 Mustang GT into the Aerospace Components Winner’s Circle with a 4.61 at 164 mph. That topped John Urist whose turbocharged machine spun at the hit of the throttle. The Edelbrock Renegade class has not been completed with Frank Varela of Hellion Racing B-Team lining up against the ProCharger machine of Alton Clements. ProCharger Coyote Modified found Johnny “Lightning” Wiker losing to Haley James, who took home her second win of the year with the Hellion Racing racecar.
Jimmy Wilson continues to impress the field with his third straight win in ACT Pure Street as he faced the defending class champion, Teddy Weaver. Wilson saved his best run for last as he set low et of the weekend with a 9.77 at 137 mph to Weaver’s 9.84 at 137 mph. The Strange Engineering Coyote Stock finale will be a JPC Racing affair as teammates Joe Marini and Mike Washington will meet each other in the finals when racing resumes this summer. The American Racing Headers Factory Stock class has a similar delayed-fate as Coyote Stock as Matt Amrine will be putting his car in the beams against Jay Dold with a classic Two-Valve vs. Four-Valve match up.
The McLeod Racing NMRA SUPER Nationals has two special shootouts that are derived from the HP Tuners True Street category. The first is the McLeod Racing Stick Shift Shootout that pairs up the two quickest stick-shift cars from the True Street field. Casey Jones and his 351W-powered 1986 Mustang ran 10.49 at 132 mph to overtake Rick Coe who posted a 10.72 at 134 mph effort. The other special shootout is the popular All-Female Shootout, presented by Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords, which drew twenty entries for the eight-car field. The quick eight eliminator was qualified using the HP Tuners True Street results. Nikki Frost went to the finals for the second year in a row with her Vortech supercharged 2013 Mustang GT. But it was not to be as Janice Llewellyn power-shifted her 2014 Shelby GT500 to victory by way an 11.59 at 126 mph to Frost’s quicker, but losing, 11.53 at 130 mph.
The Index side of the NMRA universe saw the 22-car field of Roush Performance Super Stang whittled down to just Dwayne Hickman and Marvin Knack. The race was over before it started as Knack turned on the red light and Hickman rolled out for the win with ProCharger-infused Coyote 5.0 Mustang. That was the only Index category to complete eliminations. In Exedy Racing Modular Muscle it will be Susan McClenaghan of Livonia, MI facing local racer Russ Gabbard in the finals. The 33-car Flex-a-lite Open Comp category grinded through five-rounds of racing with Mike Buczynski meeting Georgia’s Mel White in the finale. The Detroit Locker Truck & Lightning class will be a battle of two veteran truck racers-Jim Roberts in his JMS Chip and Performance pick-up truck will square up against Johnny “Lightning” Wiker and his extraordinarily loud and fast Gen II Lightning.
HP Tuners True Street swelled to 120 cars and topping the massive field was Lonnie Tibbs with an 8.32 average. The Overall Runner-Up honors went to Rob Meisch as he finished with an 8.91 average. Other winners included Jeff Bloem (9-second Average), Kevin McCotter (10-second Average), Aaron Tingle (11-second Average), Phil Lifer (12-second Average), Joe Gozolik (13-second Average), Paul Ashley (14-second Average), and John Turnley (15-second Average). The All-Female True Street, sponsored by HP Tuners as well, finished with Janice Llewellyn on top of the competition and she finished with a three-run average of 11.74. Nikki Frost was the Overall Runner-Up with a 12.07 average. Belinda Moore continued her winning ways by taking the 15-second Average victory home and she was followed by Beth Fitzgibbons being the quickest in the 14-second zone, Lisa Mack for the 13-second victory, and Danielle Amrine with the 12-second win.
A massive Bracket race broke out over the weekend with Saturday and Sunday winners being crowned. Dan Snyder of New Boston, Michigan was crowned the Fast Ford/B1 winner while Todd Lauffer worked his through six rounds of the Quick Ford/B2 category to stand on top. Street Ford/B3 was another massive bracket with six rounds required to declare a winner and that was Daniel Imoff with his 1988 Mustang. Brian Merrick outran the competition in the Nostalgia Ford/B4 class as he drove his 1964 Thunderbolt into the Aerospace Components Winner’s Circle. The final bracket-racing category was the Y-Block Shootout and the gorgeous 1956 Mercury of Bob Martin ran low 15s to seal his trip to victory lane.
