SCSS SHOOTOUT RESULTS -- AUG. 31, 2004

Rod Overfelt may have become the twelfth different winner of the 2004 Southside City Speed Shop Street Car Shootout Series, but the Series itself has evolved to a new level of performance. Overfelt and final-round opponent Brian Grote gave the Tuesday night fans the first side-by-side nine-second Ford-vs. Chevy SCSS match to cap an evening of amazing runs.

The first of the cool "autumn nights" brought a massive barometric reading, (30.21 hg), temps in the low 60s, and virtually no wind to produce a corrected elevation of a mere 600 feet above sea level.

The conditions allowed for the quickest 16-car SCSS field yet as drivers recorded career-best runs from the very start of the qualifying period.

Overfelt's beautiful blue '65 Mustang fastback blasted out a 9.78/138 effort in the first few minutes of qualifying, while Grote's red Camaro hit a 10.50/133 soon after. While the rest of the field was busy clocking 11-second runs, Overfelt returned for a 9.84/138 and Grote improved to a 10.02 at 132 mph. Ten minutes after the conclusion of qualifying, Grote made a test run prior to the final round and thundered to a 9.86 at 133 mph coupled to a perfect 0.000 Reaction Time! After that pass, the majority of the assembled crowd decided to hang around to watch what promised to be the quickest and fastest trophy dash yet in the SCSS series.

In the championship bout, Grote's car launched even harder and pushed the wheelstanding Chevy to a redlight start; both cars had 60-feet times under 1.45 seconds and the two stayed glued together for a 9.84/138 to 9.79/132 finale.

The field presented records beyond #16 qualifier Bill Hansen, whose six-cylinder Toyota Supra ran 12.212/113.58 to eclipse the old mark by more than six hundredths of a second. Mike Basarich's '75 Nova hit a best-ever 11.66/114 for the quickest Top Eight yet, and the twelve quickest qualifiers were all under 12.00 seconds.

For the second consecutive event, a rotary-powered machine missed earning a qualifier decal by a mere one thousandth of a second. This time, however, Eric Cheatham's Belleville-based '93 Mazda RX-7 grabbed the SCSS Rotary track e.t. record with a 12.213 at a whopping 120.82 miles per hour.

Laurence Bass and the Buhl Automotive team thrashed to repair the damage done last Friday to Bass' five-speed supercharged '88 Mustang in time for Bass to earn his record twelfth qualifier sticker, while Clint North's Granite City '02 Trans Am earned its seventh decal. Ironically, the two qualified in a great door-to-door match won by North, 11.20/122 to 11.25/126!

Brian Orsborn's Granite City-based Neon SRT took the quickest Front-Wheel-Drive and 4-Cylinder honors with a best of 13.24/110.53 which only placed the Dodge 38th in the field! Overfelt's win allowed Fords to extend their lead in overall wins over Chevys, 9 to 7.