 hat
shaped up to be the ultimate match after a long, tough day
of great competition, fizzled to an unsatisfying finish Sept.
11, when Steve Kirk’s car broke on the line and Mike
Hill soloed to an off-the-pace Outlaw 10.5 win at Phenix City
(AL) Motorsports Park.
“I couldn’t see Steve, but I knew he was having
a problem. All I could do was watch the people who were working
the starting line,” Hill said. “I was going to
wait on him, but the track said to go ahead. So I thought
he was broke and couldn’t make the run. I thought his
crewman had given the track official notice that they couldn’t
make it. I don’t like it like that; I wanted to race
for it.”
EXPLOSIVE
DECOMPRESSION
The Phenix City track held a single qualifying session
the day of the race that negated all three qualifying
passes that had been staged three weeks earlier before
eliminations were rained out. So Craig Miller, who hadn’t
attended the original date, had just one chance to place
his ’92 Camaro high on the Outlaw 10.5 list.
More here |
Kirk had been on a tear all day, first wresting the track
ET record away from Hill with a 4.607-seconds pass in qualifying
on the Phenix City eighth mile. Hill was second at 4.612,
followed by Marcus Birt (4.672), Jack Barfield (4.693), and
Jimmy Blackmon at 4.713 seconds.
With 12 cars running off a 16-car ladder, the first four
qualifiers enjoyed bye runs in the opening round of eliminations,
with Kirk again lowering the track ET mark to 4.56 seconds.
He followed up with a 4.58-second win over David Reese, but
a loss of traction early in the run slowed him to a 4.75 in
the semis against Blackmon, who beat a redlighting Josh McClelland
and an up-in-smoke Barfield to get there himself.
“I cut a good light and Kirk spun the tires a little
bit, so we were even it seemed until I had to pedal it about
three or four times,” Blackmon explained. “It
drifted right about halfway. I don’t know why, it just
drifts right at this racetrack for some reason, just at this
racetrack.”
Jimmy Blackmon felt he performed well
in getting to the semis, but remained disappointed at losing
traction—and the round.
On the other side of the ladder, Hill made
a 4.64-second bye run to start his race, then advanced through
Joey Martin and Birt, who experienced a huge wheelstand in
the semis before slamming his 2002 Camaro back to the ground
in a shower of sparks about 200 feet out.
|
