Drag Racing Action Online Phil Hutchison and Chris Graves

Images John Charbonneau and Chris Graves

 

The weekend of April 11-12 was a busy one for drag racing. The NHRA was in Pomona, the IHRA in Richmond VA., and Chris and Tara Graves Chaos series was at the world famous Motorplex outside Dallas Texas.

After qualifying was done Keith Zimmerer from Lindsay Texas drove his Mustang to the #1 spot at the Funny Car Chaos Classic ‘A’ field with a 3.59. The Texas Grim Reeper Mustang with Mary Reep behind the wheel was on the pole of the Alkydigger ‘B’ show with a 3.944., and Eureka Springs Arkansas racer Dan Cottrell in the ’69 Camaro Glass Chariot lead the Wulff Pump ‘C’ field with a 4.25.

After round 1 on Saturday, only Zimmerer was still standing. Reep was a no show and Contrell lost to eventual ‘C’ class runner up Steve Vang in the opening stanza.

Zimmerer defeated Mark Billington and Alex Barker to get the money round as the bump car of Mike Newkirk put John Robinson and the “Blue Max” of Aaron Marrow on the trailer to meet Zimmerer for the big money.

Newkirk got anxious in the finals leaving too soon handing Zimmerer the win. Zimmerer still put his foot into it running a winning 3.764 for the Rodak’s Coffee ‘A’ field in the Penny Pincher II Mustang.

Northeast hitter Joey Pirrone took the “Screamin Eagle” Firebird to the Alkydigger ‘B’ field win beating fellow East Coast racer Wayne Hofmann in the final. The Pennsylvania crew, whose Pontiac is one of the quicker Nostalgia cars on the East Coast defeated Dan Butherus and Robert Toth in the earlier rounds as Hofmann beat Reep and Casey Geeslin.

At the green, Pirrone ran his quickest time of the weekend with a winning 3.94 ET to Hofmann’s losing 4.067 which was the Connecticut drivers best pass of the weekend in his BBC car.Hofmann ran good in the finals but not good enough as Pirrone took the ‘B’ field win

Team owner Rocky Pirrone said, “We gave it to God because that’s exactly what we did. We left Philadelphia made it to Virginia, the coach broke down six hours from home, we put out a SOS on Facebook and hundreds of people spread the word. We got towed off safely to one of Matt Hagan’s diesel shops. Next miracle was we put out a SOS to see where we could rent a truck to get the race car back home. That turned into someone lending us their rig to make the trip to Texas. We pulled into the gates of the Texas Motorplex with a unproven chassis. We tested on Thursday, and she went straight down the track with no issues.”

“In qualifying we went a 4.08 and a 4.31, the 4.08 was for good for the number four slot in the “B” field. We had to switch mags and a points box due to dropped cylinders. With that miracle taken care of, we proceeded to run a 4.00 and 4.01 on the way to a 3.94 victory in the final round win over Wayne Hoffman.

“Winning the Texas Motorplex Chaos event is like winning the Daytona 500 to us. I can thank my crew enough for all their hard work. My son Joey did a great job driving and tuning the Pirrone Racing Screamin Eagle to victory.”

In the Wulff Pumps ‘C’ field it was Jordan Ballew and the Ballew Family Racing team in the winner’s circle The Bartlesville OK. racer a long time Chaos competitor beat Steve Vang in the finals with a 4.353 to Vang’s close 4.749 for the win.

Bellew met Jake Opatmy and Cody Chatfield in earlier rounds as Vang beat Dan Contrell and Jade Cook on the way to the final.

“We got extremely lucky, we had ignition issues in round 1, thought we had it fixed for the semis but once I did the burnout i knew we still had an issue, and we got lucky again,” saod Bellew after his win. “After the semis we swapped out our grid with our spare and that fixed our issues and we laid down a good number to take that win in the finals. It’s been 5 years since we have won a race, and it felt so great to get over the hump. After the awful weekend we had at the Motorplex a year ago with that wheelie it felt good to come back and win, we got our redemption I guess you could say.”

“Thanks to God for blessing us with this win, thanks to Ed Wulff and Wulff Pumps, thanks to my family for the support and working hard, thanks to our sponsors (United Engine and Machine, Phillips Precision Machine, Ohio Crankshaft, Driven Racing Oil, and B & C Napa Auto Parts), and thanks to Daniel Butherus, Andy Mears, Michael Neal, and Jamie Han for their help. We can’t wait for the next Chaos race.”

Steve Vang had to settle for RU in the ‘C’ field at Dallas

Adding to the Chaos, the event featured Fuel Chaos to add to the mix. A combination of front motored Top Fuels cars along with Fuel Altereds, as in Funny Car, fields were set by qualifying ETs. Two fields were featured at the Motorplex

In Nitro Chaos action, the RBS Superchargers ‘A’ Field final round was set to see Jake Sanders in “The Menace” do battle with Garry Wheeler Jr’s “Grand Prix Racing” team in a battle of outlaw front engine nitro dragsters. Wheeler’s car suffered race ending damage in the semi-finals as Sanders fired up for the solo shot, but Sanders had issues himself during the burnout and elected to stage and take the tree to ensure the win. Not the wild header flaming side by side battle we had hope for, but a win none the less for Sanders.

Wheeler had issues in the final and was not able to get his dragster down the strip giving Sanders the easy win

CP-Carrillo ‘B’ Field action welcomed Joe Kostelecky’s nostalgia top fueler and Brian Kohlmann’s “Street Fuel Coupe” to the line for the last CHAOS final round of the night. The cars were off the line together and immediately Kohlmann’s car was smoking heavily and as they neared the stripe Kohlmann took the win, the lost control in his own fluid and ended up on its side and on fire at the quarter mile mark. Thankfully CHAOS top end safety director Brad Thompson was perfectly positioned to extinguish the flames within literal seconds and Kohlmann was able to walk away from the very wild final round ride.