K&N SPRING FLING 5-DAY THURSDAY RESULTS
With a much better forecast for Thursday, the combined FTI Thursday and Optima Batteries Friday races began 
early with eliminations. Combining the two races is a proactive move on co-promoters Peter Biondo and Kyle Seipel due to Friday’s weather forecast. It means the purse is doubled all the way back to third round winners who instead of receiving $200 for a loss in the fourth round, it doubles to $400. Instead of $20,000 to win, the winner will now take home $40,000.
“We are so thankful that over 300 cars have showed up to support our event despite the likely weather forecast,” said Biondo prior to Thursday’s eliminations. “Both Kyle and myself thought long and hard about this and we feel there’s only one thing we could do to show our appreciation. Because of that, we have decided that we’ll throw another $10,000 on top to the winner making it $50,000 to win.
“We understand that in this day and age each racer has a lot of options as to where to race,” Biondo added, “and because each one of those racers chose to be here at our event, it’s our way of thanking each and every one of them.”
In addition to completing this event, there is still the Yukon Gear & Axle event from Wednesday to be completed. Sixty-nine racers have the second round of that race to complete which will take place after today’s race.
At the round of eight racers left was NHRA Super Comp champion Kevin Brannon, Bruce Combs, Aaron Vail, Tom Dauber, Allen Byrd, Adam Bochon, Marie Muller, and Chris Reynolds, with Combs and Vail all driving actual door cars and Brannon in his Super Gas roadster.
For the quarterfinal, Vail and Brannon squared off to end the hopes of one door car which happened to be Brannon, moving Vail on to the semifinals. Combs kept the door cars alive with a win over Byrd. Dauber defeated Reynolds and finally Muller took the win when Bochon redlighted.
In the semifinals, Combs defeated Muller and Vail took out Dauber. Over 300 racers took to the track today with roughly 30-percent of them being door cars. Odds always seem to be in the favor for dragsters, but Combs and Vail are taking exception to that and will be racing for $50,000 to win with their door cars.
In the final, both racers were stellar on the Christmas tree with only .001 separating them. But it was Combs’ closer to the dial that scored him his biggest win in 48 years of racing.
“This is unbelievable,” said Combs. “To score one for the door guys and the old guys is pretty cool. I know one thing, forget Disneyworld; I’m going to the Spring Fling Million next year!”
With that event completed, the Yukon Gear & Axle Wednesday race continued while the Sparco Racer Appreciation Barbeque took place with multi-event winner Anthony Bertozzi and his crew doing the cooking and feeding the multitudes.
At the quarterfinal round, seven drivers remained. Tommy Cable by virtue of his reaction time was the recipient of the bye run. Jeremy York defeated Larry Ericksmoen. Kevin Brannon took out Joe Gary. Jeff Serra lit the redlight to advance Johnny Ezell to the semifinals.
The first half of the semis involved dragster (Cable) against Brannon’s door car with Cable taking a tight win. The second half also involved another dragster versus door car, this time with Gary defeating Ezell.
For $15,000 to win, York started it off with a .008 reaction time advantage over Cable, but when you run dead-on the dial with a zero, it was tough to beat Tommy Cable. Cable was last year’s points champion and he is quickly becoming a part of Spring Fling lore.
The live feed continues by Motor Mania TV and sponsored by JEGS and Mickey Thompson Tires. Follow the video and results by visiting www.bracketraces.com
