The 2nd Annual ORCSA World Drag Challenge

The Huntsville Blowout May Have Been the Greatest Outlaw Street Car Event Ever Held!

Story and Photos by Bret Kepner
11/11/04

Leave it to George Howard to break records. The prolific promoter who brought the world the Million Dollar Drag Race and a host of extremely popular series and tracks decided to attack the world of Outlaw Street Car Racing in 2003 and within only twelve months succeeded in presenting the biggest, richest, and possibly longest event in the history of the genre.

From 2 PM Friday to 11:59 PM Sunday, Huntsville Dragway saw record numbers of racers, fans, and hot dogs eaten. During the 43 hours of on-track action, world records in Outlaw 10.5, Limited Street, and EZ Street were repeatedly broken.

With 370 cars entered, Howard was forced to use spectator parking areas for pits...then watched as the record crowds packed the facility to overflowing! Pro Modified racer Roy Hill remarked that Howard probably made more money in concession sales during the weekend than many tracks gross in a season!

Run in conjunction with ORSCA (the Outlaw Racing Street Car Association), and presented as the group’s 2004 Points Final, the event had all the familiar Howard embellishments; in two separate raffles, Howard gave away a new 2004 Ford Mustang while ORSCA presented Jerome Robinson of Tallahassee, FL, with a new $35,000 Pro Street ‘69 Camaro (courtesy of Pure Power Performance). A manufacturers’ midway included several companies offering both contingent and non-contingent prizes during the race.

There were also substantial perks for the racers; Howard offered a “second chance” eliminator purse for all classes with non-qualifiers...no small gesture in light of the 62 entries in Pro Modified and 83 competitors in the Outlaw 10.5 eliminator.

Most importantly, however, Howard continued his tradition of record-setting purses at his events by posting $20,000 in Outlaw 10.5, $5,000 in Limited Street, $2,500 for the heads-up 6.00-second Index division for street cars, $1,500 for a similar 7.00 Index class, and $1,000 for EZ Street (Drag Radial). Of course, it wouldn’t be a Howard event if there wasn’t a $3,000-to-win, 16-car Outlaw Pro Modified field and a separate program for Pro Mods with fully automatic transmissions!

For all intents and purposes, fans shelled out $25 each on the final day to watch every single one of the 370 entries race in eliminations. In fact, two-day passes were available for $45 and included three complete qualifying sessions on Day Two. The opening day program (test runs only) still presented ten hours of racing for $1/hour and included moments such as Tim Lynch’s Outlaw 10.5 4.560-second “unofficial World Record” and a similar blast of 4.876 seconds in Limited Street by home state racer Jeff Cooner.

In one monumental weekend, Howard and ORSCA jumped to the forefront of Outlaw Street Car promotion and are now exploring a multiple-event series in 2005. If nothing else, the event has already spawned several new $20,000-to-win events at other tracks in the coming months.

Meanwhile, George Howard can only work on expanding the Huntsville Dragway pits; it’s a guarantee the World Drag Challenge will be even bigger next year!

Pro Modified Outlaw Eliminator