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Phillips is a veteran bracket racer with 15 years of experience. He has owned an auto parts store and a muffler shop and is now a part owner and operator in Montgomery Motorsports Park, a quarter-mile NHRA-member track that holds a Division 2 points race plus various other "big-time" events like Super Chevy Sunday and motorcycle meets. Phillips and partner Anthony Oehler have even put on rock concerts at the sprawling super-track. He has his own 5-second Super Comp Worthy dragster and his "Bad News Travels Fast" Vega wagon, plus he's partners in a Vega coupe and the footbraked Jeep once owned by the late, great Dave "the Fly" Edwards.

Phillips figures he has won more than $200,000 in his racing career, mostly through the "Flying Fortress" Vega coupe. In 1990, he won 22 races; in 1994, he won about $40,000 and in 2000, he won the track championship at Atlanta Dragway, taking home about $30,000 at the end of the year.

So far, only one Super Eliminator race has been held in 2003, in late March at Atlanta Dragway. The weather was bad. Still, Phillips had 100 Pro cars and 52 Footbrakers, which race for $1,500 to win on each day. For 2003, Super Eliminator will be played out two more times at Atlanta Dragway and two times at Montgomery. (Telephone 404-762-1313 for more details.)

That first 2003 race, hampered by rain, drew 100 electronics cars, with a 50-50 split between doors and rail jobs. The rounds were the same, Phillips said, meaning that each class had to go the same number of rounds to the final, and come Saturday's finals, Kevin Pruett of Milbrook, Alabama won for the dragsters, and Mike Ramsey of Commerce, Georgia won in his former B/Altered Camaro for the doorslammers. Pruett won the shootout. In Sunday's finals, dragster man Mark Millford of Royston, Georgia faced Ricky Jones of Manchester, Georgia in his mid-era Camaro. In the Super Eliminator shootout, Jones beat Millford.

That makes the 2003 scorecard even, one victory for the dragster contingent and another for the door guys. There are four more races to go. "We've had five races so far (four in 2002) and out of all five, the dragsters have won one day and the door cars the next," Phillips. "I don't think the door car guys think that dragsters have so much a physical advantage or that they're afraid of them, it's just that it seems like the better drivers in big-buck bracket racing have dragsters, so therefore if a guy comes into the gate with his door car, with our Super Eliminator format, he thinks he has a better chance to get into the money," Phillips said. Each side of Super -- doors and diggers -- pays 16 places. There ARE advantages in driving a dragster, Phillips says. "I personally think they are small, but they are there. You don't have as much problem from one lane to the other. The dragster is coming from the backside of the race 99 times out of 100, but the main game of bracket racing is cutting a good light and running close to your dial-in. There are some fine door cars out there, and there are door car drivers nowadays who are not afraid of dragsters," Phillips said. "You tell me the advantage." The future of Super Eliminator? "We need more competitors," Phillips said. "And everyone who has come to one has loved it. The only criticism I've heard is from people who have not been to one. "It's a little more exciting for the crowd. At the end of a regular bracket race, you might have three or four guys hanging around to see who wins, and they're usually crew that's with the two cars. I've noticed in the final round of dragster vs. door car, everyone is still at the race. They want to know who's going to win. So it adds a touch of excitement to the final," he said.