Page 21 - NM Spring 2018
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DENTON, TX
























                                  Andy Mears’ Lubbock, Texas based 1957 Chevy bodied “Dragon Slayer” made a run through the
                                ‘B’ field and defeated Jordan Ballew in the final round to go down as winner of the inaugural event.

                                                      Story by Paul Caster
                                   Photos by Chris Graves, Tera Graves, Steve Scott and Wes Ramsey
          After many years of what I call      What does this mean? Well, if      round of eliminations, which was
        “sanitization of drag racing,”       you have a funny car collecting      the biggest field of funny cars
        someone finally stepped up and       dust in your garage and no place     Texas has seen at an independent
        promoted a true old style drag       to race it due to rules or light     drag race in over twenty years!
        racing event.  How does one          wallet syndrome, you do now!
        do this in 2017 and draw cars        The only rules are that there are      I had a chance to interview some
        and spectators from across the       ‘no rules’ other than safety. Any    of the owners/drivers before and
        country?  You hand the keys to a     engine size, any supercharger, any   after the race. A few that come to
        young, knowledgeable, enthusiastic   overdrive, any magneto(s), any       mind are John Hale, Gary Doak,
        promoter like Chris Graves and       size fuel pump(s), any legal fuel,   Chris Morel, Debra Ousley, Nick
        say ‘let ‘er eat’. He then promotes   no minimum weight, any funny car    Poloson, Daniel Butherus, Ray
        a true grass roots, run whatcha      body style, open qualifying with no   Stringer, Mike Buchanan, Jordan
        brung, no holds barred, heads up,    breakout rule (this ain’t no bracket   Ballew, Nancy Matter along with
        pro tree drag race. What better      race). The quickest eight cars       many others. I wanted their views;
        way to do this than with Funny       qualified for the A Field and the    why did they decide to  support
        Cars, Floppers, Plastic Fantastics   remaining car count qualified for    this drag race? One commonality
        or whatever you want to call them.   the B Field with sixteen available   surfaced in every conversation. It
        Like Tony the Tiger says ‘They’re    spots. Out of 23 Floppers on the     gives everybody with a big bucks/
        Great!’                              property, 21 made the call for first   low bucks Funny Car a place to

        Spring 2018                               Nitro Madness Magazine                                          21
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