Bil Clanton, from Rome, GA, raced to the Outlaw Pro Mod win at Huntsville in his "Big Money" 1953 Studebaker. Clanton said his car started shaking about 100 feet out in the final, but smoothed out as soon as he shifted to high gear.

OUTLAW PRO MOD

Bil Clanton demonstrated why he’s the defending track champion at Huntsville Dragway by laying down a 4.264 pass straight off the trailer in the opening round of Outlaw Pro Mod qualifying. Clanton said he found a crack in his engine’s magneto casing after the run, however, and duct-taped it back together before improving to a 4.229 in Sunday morning’s session.

It wasn’t quite enough, though, to overtake Ron Stokes, who secured the number-one slot over the eight-car field by going 4.172 at 175.78 mph. Also qualifying well was Martin in the former Mike Ashley-owned Willys, going 4.248 on Sunday morning. Martin also set top speed of the meet at 178.08 mph in the first round of eliminations.

In the final, Stokes left first, but almost immediately went into severe tire shake with his blown 1953 Corvette while Clanton streaked to a winning 4.109 at 175.92 mph pass. "Everything worked like it ought to today, just like I like it," Clanton said. "I wish all of them went this smooth."

Ron Stokes said his car shook so hard at the start of the final round that he actually lost a filling from one of his teeth. "I didn’t take enough out of it before I raced Bil," the Columbus, MS-based driver said. "It didn’t go 10 feet before it started shaking."  

In Outlaw Automatic Pro Mod, for automatic transmission-equipped cars only, Commerce GA’s Ronnie Davis advanced his Sagon RV Supercenter ’63 Corvette from the number-three qualifying spot to earn the event win over top qualifier Bubba Stanton. In the final, Stanton’s late-model Grand Am left with a .012 holeshot, but Davis was able to run him down and post a winning 4.358/167.10 combo to Stanton’s 4.372 at 165.93 mph

Despite taking a slight starting-line advantage, Bubba Stanton (far lane) fell to Ronnie "The King" Davis in the very tight Outlaw Automatic final at Huntsville.