50 Grand To WinHuntsville Dragway has been hosting the greats of drag racing since 1959, but the weekend of April 7-9 saw the baddest of the bad in Outlaw 10.5 go after the biggest purse in history. "I just want it to be the greatest 10.5 race ever," said George Howard, track owner and promoter. "I'm a drag-racing fan, too, and I love these cars and these drivers. It's heads-up, and you never know which way they're going to go. It's what drag racing is meant to be, what it's all about."
Anticipation built for months, ever since Howard announced the big-money event late last year. Pro Mods, Limited Street, EZ Street, and three index classes were also on the bill, but everyone knew it was the Outlaw 10.5 racers creating most of the buzz and fan interest. And from Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and every southeast state they came, with hopes of capturing a little glory, a lot of cash, and perhaps most of all, enduring outlaw credibility. Howard, of Million Dollar Bracket Race fame, opened the gates on Wednesday, and racers staked out and claimed most of the facility's paved pit spots by Thursday night.
Outlaw 10.5's roots can be traced back to HOT ROD's Fastest Street Car Shootout, which was introduced in 1992 at the NMCA final at Memphis Motorsports Park and where the next year, the Super Street 10.5 class first made an impact. From Memphis, 10-wide racing migrated farther south in little more than a series of loosely organized grudge matches where side bets often exceeded advertised purses. Outlaw racing attracted individuals in the purest sense: racers who preferred not to join either of the major sanctioning bodies, whether for monetary or travel reasons-or simply because they didn't like to be told what they could or could not do to their cars. Promoters and track operators kept the 10-wide fire stoked in the south with outlaw events at off-the-beaten-path facilities like Headhunter Motor Club Dragway in Eatonton, Georgia, East Alabama Motor Speedway, and Shadyside Dragway in Shelby, North Carolina. Now, after years of racing in relative obscurity, Outlaw 10.5 is coming on strong, helped along by recently formed sanctioning bodies like the Atlanta-based Outlaw Racing Street Car Association (ORSCA) and the Texas King of the Hill series. Purses of $10,000 to $20,000 to win have become commonplace, the national media is beginning to take notice, and the Outlaw 10.5 gang is just as likely to show up at national-event venues like Atlanta or Rockingham dragways as at some backwoods strip.
For the Outlaw Nationals, Howard kept the rules simple: 3,000 pounds minimum, stock-appearing bodies, and 10.5W tires (which actually measure about 11.25 inches across the tread). That's it. Any size engine with any power adder or combination of power adders was allowed, giving credence to the "outlaw" moniker-though nitro remained a no-go for safety and insurance reasons. In most cases, the modern Outlaw 10.5 car also must retain the stock firewall, stock-style front suspension, and mufflers, as well as limit sponsor logos to the windshield or hoodscoop to preserve the "street-car" appearance of the class. Regardless, to encourage participation, Howard said any 10-wide car that "fit the spirit of the rules" was welcome to attend.
For the 10.5 final, it looked like Washington, Georgia's Mike "The Hitman" Hill was favored in the stands, perhaps only because he's an ORSCA regular from the South and his Race Factory-built '05 Mustang sported a flashier look than Clarksville, Maryland's Richard Sexton's Gil Mobley- owned '69 Camaro. It turned out to be a thrilling drivers' contest, with Hill gaining a slight starting-line advantage then going on to win in 4.56 seconds at 149 mph despite a midtrack sashay in his car's competition debut. It helped that Sexton also had trouble in the left lane, losing traction well into the run and leaving his 4.58 at 161 just 0.024 seconds short of Hill's pass.-Ian Tocher
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