“Whatever the reason we just missed the clutch and drove through it real bad,” Jenkins explained. Regarding the late start he said, “We had enough and should’ve outrun him anyways. We missed it terrible. It’s just one of them deals where you can’t win ‘em all, but we don’t need to make mistakes in the final like that, either.”

For his part, Parker admitted it felt good to earn a rare holeshot win against the multi-time world champion. “I stole a little bit at the beams; I rolled in a little deep because I knew I had to go for it. That’s the only way you can win, is going for it.”

Parker also suggested people would be “real surprised” when they learned how his day had progressed. After replacing the engine the night before, wiring issues plagued his Columbia, GA-based team on Saturday, leaving them with no on-board computer to gather data. “We’ve been tuning by the seat of our britches,” he said. “We started off running 4.50s

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and ended up running 4-teens. We’ve just got a good team that pulled together, figured it out, and got it done. It felt better and better. We threw the coals to it in the finals and it moved around a little bit, but we just stayed with it.”

When Pro Extreme action resumed, Lynam faced off in round one against Toney Russell and his crowd-pleasing 1955 Chevy Nomad wagon. He advanced with a 4.102 to Russell’s 4.117, but lost lane choice in the semis to Jason Scruggs by just one thousandth of a second after Scruggs eliminated Todd Bauknecht. No matter, Lynam overcame a holeshot by the Mississippi-based driver when his hemi-equipped 1963 Corvette started sliding around at halftrack and slowed to a 4.235 while Lynam improved to 4.005 at 183.89 mph to also reach his second final round in one day of racing at SGMP.

John Lynam (far lane) seized a slight starting line advantage in the Pro Extreme final, but Bil “Big Money” Clanton managed to recover and earn the $10K win.

“I don’t guess it was a bad day, but it seemed like it,” said Scruggs, who was competing for just the second time this year. “All day long we were behind the eight ball. We were on a good one in the first run and then it shook; we actually had a throttle cable come off in the second qualifying round, so we weren’t qualified and we had to set the clutch and try again and we fortunately went a 4.08 and got in the show.

“Then I went up there thinking I had everything under control in the first round and went a 4.02, but we lost a cylinder at half track. We had an electrical problem and they were rushing us and we never did get it fixed, so when I went up there to run Lyman I didn’t have any power. I thought we might have got it fixed—I was hoping it was—but we never really had a chance.”

After defeating Sheppard in round one, Floridian Mike Neal had a great chance to meet Lynam again in the Valdosta final, but threw away a low ET of the meet 3.992 with a .013 redlight against Clanton’s 4.042 in the semis. “Everybody’s good on the light when you get down to four cars and I went 13 thousandths ahead of it,” Neal said later. “But that’s the way we play; I’m just glad I can still do it, an old man like me.”