OPENING DAY – THE SPRING FLING AT GALOT
This year, the K&N Spring Fling presented by Optima Batteries moved from its home at Bristol Dragway for the past 
seven years to the new Galot Motorsports Park in Dunn, North Carolina. The Bristol event moves to September and becomes the Sparco Fall Fling presented by Optima Batteries but first up were the hundreds of racers who came to Galot for Day 1, a Test & Tune day in addition to the American Race Cars/Racetech Dragster Shootout with an elite 32-car field.
Beginning this past February, all racers were invited to send in a request to be part of the 32-car Dragster Shootout field. A week ago, 32 names were pulled out of a hat and were asked their intentions to be a part of the field. When you’re racing for that kind of prize, very few declined, and so the race field was set. Two time runs were allotted the 32 in between the Test & Tune session.
After two rounds of competition, the remaining competitors were Lee Dixon, Paul Warick, Jeff Dobbins, Cameron Manuel, former ‘Fling winner Brad Jeter, Jason Lynch, Chris Dean and John Taylor Jr. In the round of eight, Warick took the win over Dixon, Dobbins defeated Manuel, Lynch took out Jeter and finally Taylor got the best of Dean.
With the semifinals on the line, second place in this outing gets each driver $500 with the winners going on to the finals and each walking away with either an American Race Cars dragster or Racetech model; winner of the two making his choice first.
In that round, Warick might have brought a knife to a gun fight with his choice of a door car, but after defeating Taylor, he’s going home with at the least one of the two dragsters. While in the other half, Lynch took out Dobbins to set up the final.
Though Warick left first with his Nova by virtue of his slower dial-in, Lynch had the better light. And you could have heard the big block Chevy in Lynch’s pedaling all the way to Greensboro but it was all for naught as the small block in Warick’s door car ran closer to his dial, taking the win light by less than one-thousandth of a second.
Now with a new dragster to take home, Warick said, “I’ve driven a dragster before but I just like door cars.” And we should say so, as his weekend is off to a great start.
Wednesday will dawn with the first of four big money races and all he action will be live thanks to MotorMania TV.com brought to you by JEGS and Mickey Thompson Tires. Stay tuned to www.bracketraces.com for more information and race results.
