Four remain Radial vs. The World as Eliminations whittles the field down from 75
Day four of the Lights Out 10 event at South Georgia Motorsports Park was marked elimination day as the field of 75 was narrowed down to the quickest 32. The headlining class, Radial vs. The World, saw record runs and an all-time quickest field as it took a 3.88 performance to even get into the show. Eliminations brought drama as rivals and friends lined up to see who would take home the $50,000-to-win in this no-holds-barred door slammer competition on radial tires.
Race officials ran three of the five scheduled rounds of competition with round one going as planned as the top half of the category advanced. The second round is when things got serious and some big names were eliminated. On the list of favorites were Mark Micke in Jason Carter’s Malibu when they lost to Paulo Guist’s “Black Betty” supercharged Camaro. Another upset was David Wolfe pushing his former Pro Stock Cavalier, which is up-fitted with a twin turbo 540ci engine, past the formidable Justin “Lil Country” Swanstrom, who was driving the family’s nitrous-gulping Camaro.
There was no question the biggest match-up in the second round was between former teammates Stevie “Fast” Jackson and Jeff Sitton. Both drivers operate Pro Modified cars with late-model Camaro carbon fiber bodies and a supercharged engine under the hood. Based on qualifying and best performance, Sitton had the advantage on paper but Jackson wasn’t about to let the previous day’s history dictate the story. The crowd-favorite did what he does best and that is out drive the competition. Jackson went .077 reaction time to Sitton’s .098 and that slight advantage off the line gave him all he needed to remain ahead at the stripe. Sitton posted a 3.721 at 200.92 mph while Jackson was a tick slower at 3.732 at 198.73 mph, but got to the stripe first. The margin of victory was a mere .01-seconds! The run sent Jackson to the quarterfinals.
The theme of the quarterfinals was simple, if you didn’t go in the 3.60s then you didn’t advance to the semifinals. The great eight that were left were a mix of turbocharged, screw-blown, ProCharger’d, and Roots supercharged combinations with the nitrous cars being knocked out earlier in competition. The quickest side-by-side pass of the weekend—until that point—went to the Mark Woodruff and Alex Laughlin pairing, a twin turbo vs. supercharged battle. Woodruff had a slight advantage at the starting line, .019 to .020, but the supercharged combo pulled ahead and held on for the win with a 3.669 at 199.63 mph to Woodruff’s impressive 3.683 at 211.30 mph effort.
Kevin Rivenbark moved into the semis with the GALOT Camaro thanks to a 3.669, beating Wolfe. In a battle of Pro Street verses Pro Mod, Slavens sent Jackson packing with a 3.668 at 215.35 mph blast to the Shadow 2.0’s 3.735 at 199.70 mph. Daniel Pharris topped Guist, using a 3.684, and that performance was the slowest round winning run- the field was that tight.
Heading into Sunday’s final day of eliminations, it will be Pharris facing Rivenbark while Slavens will line-up against Laughlin to see who will be crowned the victor of Lights Out 10.
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