Drag Racing Online: The Magazine

Number-one qualifier Chuck Ulsch went on to win the $10,000 final at Shadyside with consistently quick performances.

packed house at Shelby, NC’s Shadyside Dragway celebrated the unofficial start of the South’s eighth-mile Outlaw 10.5 season Mar. 11-12, by watching Chuck Ulsch advance to win the 5th annual Garland Buff Memorial over Steve Kirk.

After setting an unofficial 10-wide track record with a 4.49 in testing on Friday night, Ulsch qualified his Gil Mobley-owned ’69 Camaro on top of the 16-car field with another outstanding 4.500-seconds pass on Saturday afternoon. Ulsch, from Clarksville, MD, joined several other competitors in crediting track owner/operator Ronnie Buff with providing a great racing surface. “It’s got a few bumps in it,” he said, “but it’s definitely one of the best we come to as far as track preparation goes.”

Unfortunately, number-16 qualifier Mike Gowins broke, so Ulsch made an opening-round solo run on raceday, then had a second bye after neither Stacy McIntyre or Brian Pennington were able to answer the call for their first-round match. “We were able to more or less test what we were going to do later in the day,” Ulsch said of his free passes to a semi-final match up against teammate Richard Sexton. “I’d rather race somebody and win, but if anybody’s going to get a bye, I’d still prefer it to be me.”