“Mike’s tough. I knew I had to be on my game, but it [the redlight] was a surprise,” Robbins admitted. “I was a little anxious, I guess. Mike went in a little deep and his top light started flickering and I guess it got me. But it was a good win for him; he made a heck of a run.”

With a new ’05 Mustang waiting in the wings, Mike Hill’s 2002 Cobra is going out on a high note as the Washington, GA-based racer has driven it to a win at Steele, AL, a few weeks back, qualified number one at the next event a week later, and backed it up with his career-first ORSCA win at Atlanta Dragway.

Hill’s 2002 Cobra left first in the final with a .019 light, while Kirk’s 2000 Camaro left with a .041, leading to a holeshot win with Hill going 4.709 at 155.41 to Kirk’s 4.704 at 157.89 mph. Both drivers called it “a great drag race.”

“Right out of the gate I knew it was going to be close,” Kirk said. “We were both looking for the win light; it was that close.”

Hill explained his key to winning was perseverance and making the right tune-up calls.

“We ran good, we tried some stuff, moving weight around. The track kind of changed on us all through the day, but we just tried to change with it, moving weight around to keep the car hooked up,” he said. “It got some bald spots near the starting line, kind of got loose on the top side, so we were changing shocks around, too.”

Darrin Hoyle (near lane) was awarded the Limited Street win despite not getting a time in the final round against Keith Szabo. A timing malfunction triggered the win light in Szabo’s lane, but he later told ORSCA officials that Hoyle was clearly out front at the stripe and deserved the winner’s trophy and points.

Limited Street also provided an interesting finish after number-three qualifier Darrin Hoyle and number-four starter Keith Szabo went to the line for the final round. Hoyle clearly left first and appeared to lead all the way to the finish line, but the win light came on in Szabo’s left lane while the scoreboard remained blank on Hoyle’s side.

“I saw his win light come up and I didn’t know what had happened,” Hoyle said. “I knew I didn’t leave before the tree was activated, I saw the light, but I didn’t know. We didn’t really figure it out until we got our timeslips, but him being a good sportsman he told them I was ahead so we didn’t have to rerun the race.”

Szabo explained the timers worked to the 330-foot mark, but then just shut off. Regardless, he said Hoyle was “a full car ahead of me. I’m not one to give away wins, but I couldn’t have beat him this time anyway with the numbers we saw.”

“We’re good friends and rather than making another pass and wearing out our equipment—and we were going to split the money anyway—it was just one of those things where I told Johnny to let him have the points and the victory ‘cause I’m not in the points this year anyway.”

The win vaulted Hoyle to first in points over Terry Woodson and David Reese. Though not making it to the final, Robbins narrowly extended his points lead over Miller with just one event remaining on the 2005 ORSCA trail, Oct. 7-9, at Huntsville Dragway.

Defending series champion Jack Barfield left with a huge wheelie in the second round of qualifying. He wound up third on the list after he, Steve Kirk, and Hill all ran 4.649 seconds, forcing the order to be established by top speed. Terry Robbins was the number-one qualifier with a 4.571-second pass.