Welcome to the first installment of the Elephant Cage. My name is Joe Jackson and I have been around doing most of the Hemi Shootouts for years, and also all the NHRA Super Stock stats. This will be a monthly column with news and information from the SS/AH shootouts and other events for those cars.
The 2007 season has started out hot and heavy and it’s only April. Fred Henson came out like a rocket ship with his Jackson Engine Tech prepared Hemi Dart at Belle Rose, LA. At the Division 4 event he ran a great 8.489 in round one of SS eliminations. Fred also came out a winner in Super Stock at the San Antonio IHRA Division 4 event with his trusty Dart. Other great runs in March were Jim Pancake’s Dutch Classic winning Dart at 8.603, the new Earthquake Barracuda of Bob Wolkwitz at 8.604 and Westcott Jr, Caro, Hopkins, Houser and Raines all recording 8.60’s runs.
The last weekend of March Bucky Hess unloaded an 8.463/156.44 with his Joe Clark Racing Engines “King Fish” Barracuda. During the Las Vegas MATS event, Charlie Westcott Jr. (“War Fish”) ran an 8.789 in altitude conditions which figures out to an 8.575 sea level time.
Mopars at the Strip event was a great race to start off the 2007 season for the Mopar Hemi Challenge. [Ed. Note: Click here >> to see our complete event coverage of the Hemi Challenge]. Four top-notch teams from the east coast made the long journey through snow, bad winds and anything Mother Nature could throw at them, to match up with the finest
west coast SS/AH cars. Top qualifier was Charlie Westcott Jr.’s “War Fish” Cuda at 8.802/150.97. Round one went the way of the top half of the ladder with Westcott Jr. over Ogburn 8.787 to 9.130, Fred Henson over John Raines 8.860 to 8.960, Jerry Jenkins over a breaking Mark Vieira’s beautiful Dart 8.849 to 9.815.
Rick Houser made his march first defeating a red lighting Charlie Westcott Sr’s Barracuda 8.856 to 8.937. Phil Mandella soloed, as Dave Raybourn was a no show as the “Mean Fish” had engine issues during qualifying. David Barton took out the Randy Hopkins Cuda, 8.922 to 9.001 and with the clash of the yellow Darts, Jim Pancake would advance into round two over a red light start by Joe Faherty 8.907 to 9.058
In round two Henson would red light to Jenkins as Jenkins would run an 8.838 to advance on to round three and Houser would out run Mandella 8.811 to a losing 8.938. Pancake would solo over a breaking teammate David Barton. [Footnote on this run: Jim recorded a perfect .000 RT on the solo run]. Charlie Westcott Jr. would have the bye run. Semi finals would have one of the closest runs ever in Mopar Hemi Challenge history (at that time so we thought) as Jerry Jenkins would put a .014 reaction time coupled up to a 8.838 to edge out Charlie Westcott Jr.’s right there run of 8.833 with an .028 light. The other semi finals run had Jim Pancake red lighting away his chances to see his third final round in a row to Rick Houser’s strong Jim DeFrank & Sons Barracuda. He stopped the clocks with an 8.847.
