SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY, and the wrap up to the first Muscle Car Rumble series of 1986 was a corker! The crowd was massive and they went home with a lot to talk about, because this race held more surprises than usual, and the winner’s circle contained a trio of veterans, two of which have been there many times but one which has been striving for a tournament win for his whole career and finally achieved it! Corvette fanatics and long-time fans alike were not disappointed!
Right from the start the fans were downright confused! The very first race of the day dispatched a very fast previous tournament winner: Oscar “Outlaw” Obermann’s bright red ’70 Chevelle SS454 “The Landlord” was sent packing by Joe “Honey Badger” Haddon’s ’74 Vega “Plum Fizz,” but that was only the start of a rarely seen pattern, as many of the track’s fastest racers were summarily shut out in Heat One, including Walt Breckenridge (“Leviathan”), Bram Brodie (“Ghost Rider”), Hal Jacobsen (“Grendel”) and David Wahlberg (“The Final Countdown”). Only ultra-fast Roy “Railbender” Ruskin turning in the fastest time of the entire race with his gold ’70 Olds 442 “Low Flyer” made any sense! This strange turn of events left the field wide open for both some up-and-comers and some veteran drivers who have been pursuing glory for a long time, so things just kept getting more and more interesting with each heat, and things got MUCH hotter in the first elimination round!
Two of the day’s most incredible races were the shootout between Ruskin’s Olds and relative newcomer Jaryl “The Gambler” Garen’s ’69 Hemi Charger “One Eyed Jack,” who came to the track with a new set of wheels and tires; the ever-fast Ruskin nearly equaled his fastest-of-the-day time in this heat, yet was still shut out by Garen, who made it all the way to the final elimination round with that gorgeous red and white Hemi! And the race between William “Werewolf” Ward’s ‘65 Mustang “Golden Dawn” and founding ’67 Heaven member Carl “Crimson” Calhoun’s bloody GTO “Scarlett Fever” was an unbelievable nail-biter that kept every fan on edge, with Calhoun besting Ward by mere hundredths of a second! And the highlight of Elimination 2 was a face-off between 2 of those founding members of vaunted Team ’67 Heaven, where Calhoun was shut down by Shane “Storm Rider” Sutherland’s Malibu SS396.
The Final elimination round pitted Sutherland’s “White Lightning” against Jim “Mongoose” Matheson’s ’70 Corvette LT1 “The Pharoah,” and fellow team member Jeremy “Lucky” Logan’s ’67 Nova SS “The Slider” against Joe “Honey Badger” Haddon’s “Plum Fizz” Vega. When The Final Battle came, it was two veterans, one who has already had two tournament wins against another who has been there just as long and won many races, but was still chasing a tournament victory! By barely a 10th of a second, Jim “Mongoose” Matheson’s beautiful Daytona Yellow 1970 Corvette LT1 took home the tournament win, leaving previous tourney winner Logan in a close second place, with multiple-time tourney winner Sutherland in 3rd!
So the winner’s circle this time around was 100% bow-tie brand! It was a well-deserved win for Texan “Mongoose” Matheson, who has been racing his yellow ‘vette at Drag City since the track’s earliest days! Rookies Haddon and Garen had amazing times, not quite making it to the winner’s circle, but making it clear they have everyone’s number for future tourneys!
DCR’s next big event will be for big sports cars, a different kind of racing that’s always just as thrilling, so don’t touch that dial, race fans! You know the action never stops at DRAG CITY!
As always, you can just feel the excitement in your write up. I love the unpredictable nature of the races. Even though you know which cars are better performers than others, it seems like anything goes sometimes once the track starts burning and there are always surprises!
Exactly, which is what makes it so fun! If it were as predictable as the numbers indicate, this would get boring really fast, but there are always enough variables to make every race an adventure!