Say that with me, folks: Four-teens. No, not fourteens as in 14.30 (how quick my first Mustang went in the quarter-mile), but four-teens as in 4.19-seconds at over 186 MPH. That’s how quickly “Stevie Fast” Jackson was able to get from one end of the eighth-mile to the other at Holly Springs Motorsports in Mississippi on Saturday during an end-of-year test session. Jackson has been in the 4.20’s a number of times previously, but this session was special for him as he brought the team from PTC out to data-log with him. PTC supplies his torque converters and Jackson was running one of their units in the car and steadily crept up on the tuneup all day long.

Photo Credits: Deda Minor

As Holly Springs is fast becoming one of the premier eighth-mile tracks in the country, Jackson was only too eager to take advantage of their killer track prep, as evidenced from the video — check out how glued down the tire is at the 1:48 mark of the video — just before Jackson makes history. The 186 MPH speed in the eighth-mile means he has an acceleration rate of nearly 158 feet per second through the traps – an insane rate for a small-tire car to achieve in only 660 feet. The 1.146 short time only hints at how quick the F3-R ProCharger-equipped big-block Chevy machine gets going, as the 2.86 330′ split is much more telling; Pro Mods only average in the mid 2.60’s here. Once you realize that Jackson’s car crossed the scales at nearly 3,200 pounds, his achievements become even more incredible. PTC’s Deda Minor remarked, “He really deserves the glory and we’re just excited that he took the leap of faith to use our converter and it led to those results for him.”

Said Jackson, “We have been dancing around the record all year long. We finally got the parts and pieces together to do it. I drove nine hours to set the record. After that pass I loaded her back in the box to come home. Just wait until Valdosta 2013…I’ll show y’all what she’ll really do.”

Over the last couple of years, the Outlaw Drag Radial class has been at the forefront of small-tire racing technology. The advances in torque converter and engine management systems has been nothing short of incredible and the records seem to be dropping quicker than we can write them up. All indications are that 2013 will be a huge year for the small-tire gang, and it’s racers like Stevie Fast that will be making that splash.