Year after year, Steve King makes a strong showing at Orlando with his 526 Hemi-equipped ’98 Viper and the Strasburg, VA-based racer did it again in ‘07, qualifying third with a 6.618-seconds pass at 208.39 mph. After Bill Meadows redlighted against him in round one, King fell in the second round to Jarod Wenrick after both drivers suffered traction trouble early and Wenrick was able to recover just that little bit quicker.
Also entering Super Pro Street with a Mopar was Art Hodges, who came all the way from across the country at Simi Valley, CA, with his 815 c.i. Hemi-motivated ’05 Stratus. Hodges went 7.943/123.78, which was good enough for 41st out of 69 entries, but well outside the 32-car raceday field. Also, Covington, GA’s Mike Takarz managed only to run 9.360 at 120.06 in his Chevy-powered 2005 Avenger. Better put some Pentastar power under the hood for next year, Mike!
rlando. The name says it all. Just as open-wheel pilots dream of victory at Indy and NASCAR’s best can’t consider a career complete without Daytona on the win list, “Orlando” has taken on almost mythic significance for outlaw doorslammer racers. A win on the quarter mile just outside the city that Disney built is something to treasure. The perfect punctuation to end a championship season or a means of redemption for a year otherwise best forgotten, it requires beating the best of the best and confers bench-racing bragging rights for the ages.
Mopar racers certainly respond to the lure of Orlando and though their numbers are tiny compared to those of their GM and Ford counterparts, they made a decent showing Oct. 26-28, in the 15th annual Real World Street Nationals at Orlando Speedworld Dragway.
In the end, though, Mother Nature was the only real winner this year as rain put an early end to eliminations on Sunday, then washed away any chance of completing the race on Monday. Track operator and race promoter Carl Weisinger then decided to name the winners based on who ran the best E.T.s for each class in the last completed round of eliminations.
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According to that criteria, Annette Summer prevailed in the Super Pro Street class with a 6.450-seconds blast at 225.41 mph in a second-round bye. Vinny Budano, Summer's scheduled opponent in the quarter-finals, was named runner-up based on his 6.517 win over Halvor Hansen Jr. In Outlaw 10.5, teammates Richard Sexton and Chuck Ulsch shared the winner's accolades after Sexton won his round-two match over Jim Robbins with a 6.981/208.52 pass while Ulsch, the defending event champion, was just five-thousandths back after going 6.986 seconds to beat Lawrence Berry.
Only the first rounds of Heavy Street and Drag Radial were completed before the rains came and Heavy Street honors went to Canterbury, CT's Sam Gottier, courtesy of a 7.513/186.07 win over Dale Hammond with polesitter and fellow Connecticutt racer John Schroeder named runner-up. David Wolfe took the Drag Radial title home to Ft. Worth, TX, after going 7.700 at 194.72 to beat Scott Bitzer and Alabama's Shane Stack was given the runner-up position.
