Mopars at Montgomery
Mopars were in short supply Nov. 24, when Montgomery Motorsports Park hosted its 7th annual Turkey Day Shootout, with only Paul Poteat of Thomaston, GA, making it into eliminations with his ’74 Duster.
Also representing Mother Mopar at the eighth-mile meet were Pete Simpson, who broke his ’01 Viper in his second qualifying attempt for the 4.70 index class and Larry Mangum, whose Hemi-powered ’68 Cuda also encountered trouble in 5.30 qualifying.
The race was conducted under overcast skies in nippy conditions and in the end, Ronnie Davis prevailed in the top-ranked 4.30 index final over event promoter Edmund “Mr. 5-Speed” Hall. 
Florida’s Bobby Sowell won the 4.70 final and local driver Neil Messick took 5.30 honors with the 6.0 class win going to Montgomery’s own Buddy Baggett. Josh Mackey won in 7.0 and the 8.0 win belonged to Heath Hammitt.
Paul Poteat (right) qualified his ’74 Plymouth Duster 12th in the 21-car 6.0 index field to face off against Shelly Freeman’s late-‘70s Camaro in the opening round of eliminations. Freeman got away first, so Poteat was forced into a catch-up role and broke out with a 5.98-seconds pass at 108.25 mph.
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Pete Simpson (above), racing out of Dodeville, AL, made a 5.44/126.95 pass in his initial qualifying attempt for the 4.70 class and was looking to improve his 12th-place standing. However, at the end of this burnout for his second attempt something broke on his 2001 Viper and he was unable to answer the call for first-round eliminations.
Local racer Larry “Superman” Mangum (left) suffered handling problems during qualifying at Montgomery’s Thanksgiving weekend event and withdrew from 5.30 competition, but stuck around to make several unofficial test passes. Car owner Elijah Casey (behind car with brown coat, black hat) said he bought the ’68 Cuda to turn it into a racecar more than 15 years ago, but this is the first year it’s seen the track. “I just got tired of dust collecting on it, so I decided I had to race it or sell it. And I didn’t want to sell it, so here it is.” The pumpkin-colored Cuda is powered by a 426 Hemi boosted by two stages of nitrous and has made a best pass of 4.89 at just over 148 mph earlier this summer over the Montgomery eighth mile. A Mopar man to the bone, Casey revealed he also has an original 440 6-pack 1970 Roadrunner in the garage at home that he bought new while still in high school.