NMRA Bradenton 2012 Same Day Coverage

It’s the first race of the NMRA season here in Bradenton for 2012. With a strong showing in True Street and the Cobra Jet Showdown, this weekend will be the place to be for Mustang racers. Keep it tuned to StangTV all weekend for the coverage from Bradenton!

Special thanks to our event coverage sponsor SCT Performance, check them out at www.sctflash.com.

It's elimination day at Bradenton and the weather has changed from hot and sweaty to cold and breezy. They have been running the index rounds this morning and will get into heads up in the afternoon, mainly due to the low car counts.

Eliminations Recap

Due to the low car count in heads up, eliminations for those classes started at 12pm and was promptly concluded at 3pm.

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Factory Stock

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Louis Sylvester shocked the Factory Stock crowd with his fast, all 10-second runs during eliminations. During his semi final single pass, Sylvester would break the Factory Stock record with a 10.735 @ 125.03. His runs were so impressive, the NMRA prompted a tear down at the end of the race. Sylvester nearly lost the race in the finals as an ultra-late .207 reaction time against Carlos Sobino's .096 would put the margin of victory at the stripe at twenty thousandths of a second.

Hot Street

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Hot Street finals were pretty simple with Don Bowles taking a broken bye run due to Michael DeMayo's engine troubles. Robbie Blankenship would have a competition bye were he would loose to Don Bowles after drifting too close to the center line, which caused him to lift. Bowles went on to a 8.457 @ 156.65 mph win.

Renegade

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Number one qualifier Alton Clements would run into a bit of bad luck in the first round of eliminations against Jim Breeze. Clements' Mustang typically calls for a small wheel stand that carries out about 40 feet, though on his first round pass, carried out a bit longer that also generated a second hop. When all said and done, Clements' Mustang would ride dangerously close to the wall, which forced him to lift and give the win to Breese. Brian Mitchell's holeshot win over Wyce in their first round pairing put their margin of victory at fifty-five thousandths. In the semi final round Mitchell would face off against Allmandinger, where Mitchell would get too close to the centerline that forced him to lift. In the finals, Jim Breese would throw all he could at his new Renegade Mustang, though couldn't pass up Allmandinger's 8.442 to Breese's 9.010.

Drag Radial

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After the first round of eliminations in Drag Radial, there were only two Mustangs in the 7-second range - Ronnie Diaz and Jason Lee. On his first round bye, Lee would crush the Drag Radial record with a 7.413 @ 177.06 pass. Consequently, the two fastest cars in the class would face off in the second round where despite Diaz's awesome .009 light, would still loose to Lee with a 7.775 to Lee's 7.571. Lee continued his reign of terror to the finals where Lee would beat Lamana on a 7.501 to an 8.226

Super Street Outlaw

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We saw John Urist creep up on his tune up all weekend; at the start of Friday's testing the Nitto-backed Mustang was leaving very soft. By Sunday's eliminations, the Hellion racing crew had the car dialed in. In the first round, Urist would take out Phil Hines in a rather good race - a 7.074 to a 7.195 - where Urist set low ET of the weekend. Chris Tuten would get out of shape and take out the 330-foot cone to hand the automatic win over to Andrew DeMarco. Kenjo Kelley knew he was going to need a good light to outrun Urist in the second round, though left a bit early and handed Urist the 7.096 win. Andrew DeMarco would try his best in the finals against Urist, but just couldn't shake the super consistent Urist, who won on a 7.167 to DeMarco's slower 7.393

Pro Outlaw 10.5

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It was a hard weekend for the Pro Outlaw 10.5 crowd where it seemed like every car in the class was having problems...except Tim Essick, who would have a broken bye run when Jim Brown failed to show after Friday's engine failure. Mike Murillo would also suffer from parts breakage at about the eighth mile during his first round pass. Archie Marasco, Murillo's competitor, would also have his fair share of issues in the form of finding traction. While it wasn't pretty, Marasco was able to squeak by the coasting Murillo to take the 9.027 to 9.090 win. Marasco would continue to have traction problems in his final round pass against Tim Essick, who took the win with a weekend low 6.663 @ 210.18 mph pass.

Special thanks to our event coverage sponsor SCT Performance, check them out at www.sctflash.com.

Saturday Morning News From The Pits

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With an average of four cars running per race last year, it was inevitable that the Real Street class was going to get axed. Two of the prominent racers, Tim Matherly and Jim Breese, have made the jump to Renegade. It looks like at this point that defending champion Bruce Hemminger will not be making the upgrade. It hasn't been a simple upgrade; both racers have had to make significant drivetrain and suspension upgrades to be competitive in the class.

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Don Bowles had his PSCA-built four eye Mustang here to do a few test passes on. This car was built specifically for the west coast Hot Street rules, which are dramatically different than the east coast's.

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A few more heads up cars showed up this morning - Super Street Outlaw's Andrew DeMarco and Factory Stock's Rick Walsh.

Qualifying Round 2 Notes

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Factory Stock

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Carlos Sobrino would come out for his first official qualifying hit to take the number one spot in Factory stock with a 11.163 @ 119.23 mph run. John Leslie would improve slightly to a 11.282 while Kermit Buffington would have problems at the line that would cause him to have to be pushed back.

Drag Radial

Jason Lee would improve slightly off his Friday's qualifying pass with a 7.523 @ 185.49 mph, which can be mainly attributed to keeping the front wheels on the ground.

Renegade

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The cause for Alton Clements sideways shuffle in the first round of qualifying was related to transmission problems that dumped fluid onto the tires. He was able to take over the number one qualifying spot in wheels up fashion with a 8.487 @158.42 mph. Jim Breese would abort his run after getting dangerously close to the centerline...and later coughed out an air intake pipe.

Hot Street

Super Street Outlaw

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Kenjo Kelley would improve to the third spot with a 7.324 @ 187.50, while Tuten and Urist stayed one and two from their first round times. Phil Hines would have to abort his run after getting loose about 100 feet down the track.

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Mike Murillo would suffer parts failure from a broken transmission case that sprayed fluid on the track from start to finish, causing a one hour delay to clean up. Jim Brown would suffer parts failure as well from yesterday and only staged his Mustang to get qualifying points. Tim Essick stays number one with his 6.903 pass from yesterday.

Qualifying Round 3

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Here's someone you haven't seen at an NMRA race in awhile, Manny Buginga. While there has been some off season chatter than the former Super Street Outlaw champion was going to return, Manny is still sitting on the side lines...in a matter of speaking...

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Only a light amount of reshuffling happened during the final round of qualifying. Don't forget to check out our 200 image photo gallery by using the drop down at the top of the page. Here are a few of our favorites from the round

Future Feature – Joe Guertin’s Coyote Powered Fox Body

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Special thanks to our event coverage sponsor SCT Performance, check them out at www.sctflash.com.

Friday Morning Pit Notes

Mike Washington is making a semi-full return back to Factory Stock in 2011, who looks to run five races this year. It was this race 10 years ago were he received his first NMRA Factory Stock win and went on to finish fourth that year.

In 2003, he almost beat Charlie Booze to the punch in the “perfect season” category, getting all the way down to the last round of the last race of the year in Bowling Green still undefeated. In that matchup against Jamie Holten, Washington’s clutch pedal caught on the overtravel stop designed to keep it from going all the way to the floorboard and wouldn’t come back up, costing him the race and the no-hitter for the season.

Though the 2003 championship was his by a mile, 2004 wasn’t nearly as easy, and Washington finished second in points. After taking 2005 off, Washington returned to FS in 2006 but subsequently moved up to Real Street.

His refreshed Factory Stock Mustang features a new 312ci motor built by RGR, along with a myriad of other suspension updates.

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One class we are excited about this weekend is Coyote Stock. As long as you purchase a sealed 2011 5.0 engine from Ford Racing, you can put it into any Ford chassis you want and come run heads up racing. It's a great class for budget-minded enthusiasts that still want the ability to run high 10 second times with. Though there is currently only one Coyote Stock car on the the property...

Steve Matusek is back with his beautifully-panted BOSS 302 Mustang. While many think it was simply just a new paint job, Matusek has also done many updates to the car over the winter - including new turbos and refined suspension.

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Quite possibly the highest car count for the weekend in the pro pits is the Cobra Jet Showdown class, with about a dozen cars on hand. The class will qualify on Friday, and run on a Sportsman ladder with a .500 full tree for Saturday eliminations. The class will feature a $2,500 purse and the overall winner of the Showdown will receive $1,000.

One man that has put up some impressive off season numbers is Chris Tuten with a 7.o2 @ 2o4 mph in testing. Tuten ended up second in the championship last year with a 7.03 run at the Bowling Green finals. It will be harder this year though with the temperatures looking to be in the mid 80s. One thing Tuten is definitely looking forward to is a better Bradenton - at last year's race he was plagued by a broken engine.

Factory Stock champion Carlos Sobrino is back with a new scheme on his Mustang, though we can't quite figure out what's going on...

Test and Tune Notes and First Round of Cobra Jet Showdown

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All the cars were running faster than their dial-ins for the first round of Cobra Jet Showdown, but it was Anthony Bongiovanni with the fastest Cobra Jet of the round with a 8.920 @ 149.17. Steve Matusek of Aermotive is playing double duties in the CJ class along with testing his Pro Mod, running a 9.852, -.448 under his dial in. On Wednesday while testing ahead of this weekend’s race, Tasca got the job done, reportedly cranking out a killer 7.96 at 174 MPH from his “Winner White” 2010 Cobra Jet to become the first Cobra Jet into the sevens.

Steve Matusek has been struggling to get his Mustang down the track and hasn't had a successful launch yet.

The heat is hurting the all motor cars in Hot Street. Robbie Blankenship was off pace with his test and tune pass of a 8.54 @ 151.

Jim Brown had some issues with his Pro Outlaw 10.5 Mustang as the car stumbled while trying to do a burnout. The team pushed the car back into the staging area where they had the nose off. Minutes later Brown returned to make a run but had to lift mid track.

Kenjo Kelly was on a solid pass in his Super Street Outlaw Mustang but had a puff of smoke a the eighth mile and had to shut it off, costing to a 8.07 @ 124 mph.

Qualifying Round 1 Notes

Pro Outlaw 10.5

Super Street Outlaw

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Chris Tuten set low ET of the round with a clean 7.165 @ 200.75 pass. John Urist has been leaving abnormally soft during his passes today and ended up in the number two spot with a 7.241 @ 201.88 mph. Both Phil Hines and Kenjo Kelley had to pedal on their runs.

Renegade

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Since Pure and Real Street were both eliminated from the NMRA heads up schedule, some had to choose to go different directions. Tim Matherly stepped up from Real Street to Renegade, though could not get the car to run properly. Brian Mitchell managed to hold down the number one spot with a 8.533 @ 151.36. Alton Clements would go into wheel spin at the 60 foot clock and would abort his run.

Drag Radial

Jason Lee ran a very respectable pass in the heat with a 7.583 @ 184.57, and he even had to pedal a wheelie when the Mustang came up at about 100 feet out.

Hot Street

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It was a lonely pair of ROUSH-powered naturally aspirated cars in Hot Street during the first round. Robbie Blankenship would nudge out Don Bowles for the number one spot with a 8.557 to a 8.625

Coyote Stock

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It was a battle of the Joe's during the first round of Coyote Stock as Joe Charles raced Joe Guertin. As you may have noticed, Charles is driving the Tim Matherly's championship-winning Real Street Mustang in the new class. Charles would take the number one spot with a 11.197 to Guertin's 12.492

Factory Stock

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Mike Washington took the top spot in Factory Stock with a nice wheels up launch and a 11.206 @ 117.89 run. Defending champ Carlos Sobrino would be DQed after leaking fluid was found after his burn out. John Leslie Jr. came in with a close second spot 11.467 run, and Louis Sylvester's 11.532.

Qualifying Round 1 Sheets

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Up Coming Feature…

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Within the next few weeks we will have a full feature on Charlie Cooper's supercharged 5.0-powered F-150, that runs mid 11s with only a few bolt ons! Stay tuned...