The FuelTech Outlaw Street Car Reunion VIII was completed Saturday afternoon right as the rains began to fall. Race officials made the tough decision to begin eliminations on Friday afternoon after three rounds of qualifying for all categories. This move proved to be the best case scenario due to the rain beginning to fall right as the last final round passed the scoreboards and turned off the racing surface at Virginia Motorsports Park.
Racing action on track was in rare form as cars pushed the limits and nearly put themselves into the record books on one of the best racing surfaces in the country. Stevie ‘Fast’ Jackson paced the field in Mac Fab Beadlocks Radial vs. The World with a 3.51 elapsed time in qualifying but fell in defeat in the opening round of eliminations. Ken Quartuccio debuted a brand new ’69 Camaro from Skinny Kid Race Cars on Tuesday morning during a private test session on big tires, decided to swap to radial tires for this event only and left on Saturday afternoon with a $20,000 pay day. Quartuccio and crew chief Jamie Miller made 15 runs between Tuesday to Saturday and all 15 made it to the finish line without an aborted run albeit parts failure on two laps that were well on the way to the stripe under power. Ken defeated Jamie Hancock in a great final round, Ken’s 3.60 at 205mph pushed past Hancock’s nitrous huffing 3.69 at 195mph.
Manny Buginga in his ’03 Mustang nicknamed ‘Fred’ showed the Pro Line Racing Pro275 that consistency is the name of the game as he reeled off elapsed times from 3.70-3.72 on nearly every run in qualifying and eliminations. Buginga faced off in a #1 vs. #2 matchup in the finals with Shawn Ayers driving Fletcher Cox’s ’69 Camaro. Ayers with a slight reaction time advantage made it one of the best side by side races of the year but Buginga’s 3.72 was just quick enough to outlast Ayers’ 3.75. Mike Cerminaro and Rob Goss took ProCharger to the final round of BCOP X275, presented by: ProCharger. Cerminaro had down track troubles in the finals as Goss had to pedal and both ran a 4.54 elapsed time but Cerminaro got to the finish line first by only .001 of a second. Ron Rhodes was your number one qualifier and low elapsed time of the weekend with a 4.158 second shot at 172 miles per hour. Scott Parson took his Pennsylvania based ’67 Camaro to the winners circle in UPR Products/Motion Raceworks Ultra Street over Kentucky’s own Martin Connelley. Parson was .008 on the reaction time in the finals and ran a 4.551 in route to the winner’s circle. Florida’s own Mike Freeman was number one qualifier and low elapsed time for the weekend with a 4.536.
Billy Brown took down all comers in the Most Wanted N/T Street Car Shootout with his ’98 S10, making Ryan Osborne’s Malibu the final victim of the weekend in the finals. William Brown, III was the lone finalist for the N/T Big Tire Shootout as Brad Digges had an unfortunate accident following his win in the semi-finals in the shutdown area of the racetrack.
JR Ward piloted Robbie Langford’s ’67 Chevy II to the winners circle in Top Sportsman with a 4.35 elapsed time in the finals to defeat Bootie Harris in the ’99 S10 going 4.70. Harry Gerb wheeled his ’68 Firebird to a win in 5.49 Index and Ricky Williams took home the 5.90 Index crown as well.
Detailed Results for all classes including winner’s circle photos can be found by clicking HERE!
We want to thank all of our marketing partners, the racers, the fans, all of the media, the Virginia Motorsports Park staff and everyone in between that made this event happen and come to completion earlier than originally scheduled. We hope that you all enjoyed the event and have your calendars marked for the COMP Cams Shakedown Nationals, presented by: FuelTech coming to Virginia on September 15-19, 2021!
Photo Credit: Allison Menscer and Chris Simmons Photography
