In the final round, Jenkins got away first, then posted a winning 6.473 at 220.96 mph to Gillig’s 6.704/190.75 combo. “The car was perfect all weekend, it couldn’t have been better,” Jenkins said. “We didn’t have it apart once; it was almost boring with nothing to do between rounds, but you need this kind of weekend every now and then.”

Lake Bluff, IL’s Tony Gillig came from the number-five position to challenge Jenkins in the Super Pro Street final, but he was never close to the mid-6.40s Jenkins ran all day long.

Steve Kirk and Lynch traded qualifying punches in Outlaw 10.5, with each running a six-second pass before Kirk finally secured the top spot among 70 entries with a 6.961 at 203.80 in the final session on Saturday night. Lynch started second with a 6.976, with Mike Hill in Terry Robbins’ 2002 Camaro third at 7.012 seconds.

It was shaping up to be the dream Kirk versus Lynch match in the final, but Kirk’s nitrous-equipped 2000 Camaro lost traction off the hit in his semi-final match against Brian Carpenter and although he recovered quickly, Kirk came up just a little short of going to the money round.

“I was catching him and I made it up to about his quarter panel at the stripe. If this had been a half-mile race I’d have caught him easy,” the Monroe, GA-based chassis builder joked.

Meanwhile, Lynch steered his Steve Petty-tuned, twin-turbocharged ’02 Cobra past Darren Eash, Craig Pio, Marcus Birt, and Jeff Shawver to reach the final. Carpenter, who qualified his Petty-built single-turbo 2003 Cobra 12th, beat Dan Parker and Joel Greathouse before making a solo pass in the third round when Richard Sexton was a no-show, then got away first and held on to beat Kirk with a 7.313-second pass in the semis. Lynch grabbed a .017 advantage off the start against Carpenter, then powered away from the Forest Lake, MN driver to win his second-straight Orlando title in 7.175 second at 206.18 mph, while Carpenter made an 8.339-second run at only 164.77 mph.

With tuner Steve Petty crouching in the background, Tim Lynch launches his 2002 Mustang Cobra toward another Outlaw 10.5 win at Orlando. Lynch and his “Lynch Mob” were the only 2004 champions able to defend their World Street Nats title this year.

“We were definitely conservative today, just running it as hard as we thought we had to,” Petty said later. “We just didn’t want to smoke the tires because the track was a lot trickier today than the last two days. We just gave it enough to win.”

Mississippi’s Shannon Wren stood on top of the list with a 7.927 at 178.67 in his turbocharged ’94 Mustang after 74 Drag Radial teams made their qualifying attempts. Wren went out in round two, however, against eventual finalist Smooky Hall, driving a nitrous-assisted ’89 Camaro from nearby Hollywood, FL.