Luckily, the Englishtown crew did a great job prepping the track, which helped fuel Jonathan Atkins' unbelievable wheelstands and 60-foot times. On the first run, and nearly on the third, he had to pedal out of the wheelstand to prevent scraping the rear bumper. It took a few runs to dial-in the tire pressure and shock settings, but once he did, Jonathan had the best short time of the day on his second to last run. The 1.29 not only eclipsed his best 60-foot to date, but he went on to set a new best ET of 9.83. The 23-year-old had the TA launching straight as an arrow all day long, which is a credit to his driving abilities and the suspension setup. We originally thought Jonathan owned a nitrous car, given his penchant for wheelstands and the single-digit times, so we were pleasantly surprised to learn that he was riding au natural. It was even more surprising to find that he had been foot-braking the entire time. Thankfully, the TH350, high stall converter, and 4.11s took good advantage of the monster torque supplied by the big bore 434-cube LS1. The high-spinning solid roller motor had good reason to be outperforming the competition with both a cubic inch advantage and huge flow with the C5R heads.
Despite having the third fastest car at the shootout, Ed Wright was more than just disappointed-and for good reason. He was racing without Second Gear! Ed has been dialing-in his combo for quite a while, and had decided (with his transmission builder) to try something a bit different to speed up the shifts. Unfortunately, the experiment didn't pay off, and he traveled the majority of the track in high gear. Considering the condition of his transmission, 10.50 wasn't at all bad. At the start of the day, Ed was using a set of radial slicks that didn't respond well to the track and caused spin on the first two passes (including the 10.50 run). When he switched to the bias-ply slicks on his third attempt, he put the TA on its bumper in spectacular fashion. After pedaling out of the wheelie, he coasted across the stripe, and on the next run, he finally got the launch right before hitting the rev limiter and spoiling it. The fifth run saw the tranny go totally kaput. As soon as Ed got back to Oklahoma, he returned the tranny to its previous form, and went 9.91 at 136 mph without the 1.31 short time he managed at E-town (or the low altitude). I think it's safe to say that had his tranny not been giving him fits, he could definitely have challenged for top billing. Not bad for a 383 LT4.
The use of mufflers kept Rick Abare from setting a new best ET by a tenth, but at half-track, his times were quite impressive. He had no trouble hooking, and cut 1.31 short times at will. On his best run of 10.068 at 132 mph, he found the sweet spot in tire pressure and shift points. Despite his best efforts, Rick couldn't break into the single digits. Like the other automatic-equipped competitors at this shootout, Rick was launching off the foot-brake and easily lifted the front end with the skinny 30x9 slicks doing the gripping. He came prepared with a set of Competition Engineering wheelie bars to keep the chassis in check. With a substantial solid roller cam and a Holley Commander allowing the motor to spin over 7,000 rpm, it appears Rick is near the limit of his other factory-style components. Even with the Advanced Induction competition CNC-porting, the stock castings simply can't compete with aftermarket heads-let alone LS1s. The same can be said for the stock intake manifold and Pro-Built 4L60E. But, in true NHRA form, his sense of efficiency in maximizing every last horsepower is what enabled Rick to have the second fastest car in the field, beating out all but one LS1.