Pro Extreme star John Lynam enjoyed a strong outing at SGMP, making the only official three-second pass of the event and winning one of two final rounds in which he appeared.

“Usually when you get three rounds of qualifying instead of two, that’s a luxury because you can play around a little bit and experiment, whereas today it was competition every time we came out of the trailer,” Pro Extreme points leader John Lynam said. “It was a race every time we went to the line.”

Beaufort, SC’s Lynam, driving Johnny McGrady’s 1963 “Lil’ Red Corvette,” was up to the task, though, easily getting past Bubba Stanton in a similar ride in the opening round on Saturday morning, then dispatching Michael Neal and his ’92 Lumina. That set him up for the Belle Rose final in the third Valdosta qualifying session against Neal’s father, Mike Neal, driving Don Stroud’s 1953 Studebaker. Neal took out former Lynam crewmember Herman Sheppard and longtime rival Bil Clanton with his two previous qualifying passes.

Mike Neal, runner-up in the Belle Rose portion of the event at Valdosta, relaxes alongside his son Michael’s ride while awaiting the start of Pro Extreme eliminations.

When the sun finally began to set, the track temperature fell to about 125 degrees for the Belle Rose Pro Extreme final. Neal left first with a .020 holeshot, but Lynam quickly reeled him in and posted the first three-second run of the event over SGMP’s eighth-mile course—a very impressive 3.995 seconds at 189.59 mph pass that also qualified him number one for the Sunshine Drags—while Neal went 4.083 at 180.19 mph.

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It was much the same situation on the Pro Nitrous side of the pits, though Belle Rose pairings didn’t come into play until the second round of qualifying at Valdosta (confused yet?), where Keith Baker in yet another ’63 ’Vette eliminated James Hancock, and Johnny Pilcher redlighted his split-window Corvette against points leader Shannon Jenkins.

That set up a Baker-Jenkins battle for Belle Rose honors. Baker, from Dothan, AL, took the starting line advantage with a .048 reaction to Jenkins’ .078, but by halftrack “The Iceman” caught up and drove his SpeedTech-backed ’68 Camaro past to win by a car length after going 4.125 at 183.42 to eclipse Baker’s 4.220/175.25 combination.