Drag Illustrated Issue 109, May 2016 | Page 104

barry mitchell
dent of Metrolina Steel Erectors , and returned to Orlando the following evening .
“ I picked up my crew , the truck and trailer , and we headed out to Duck ’ s race ,” he detailed of how busy he had been in the days leading up to the main event . There , they continued to work on the car , its tuning and suspension setup . Small adjustments were made to the transmission and torque converter to fine-tune the performance once there , which Mark Micke himself did on-site .
Everything came together at just the right time for Mitchell . With car counts at Donald Long ’ s races easily double or triple that or other events , the fields are unthinkably competitive and Mitchell had planned to show up with an unproven combination and a lot of “ what ifs ”.
Initially , he was running in three classes at once and his small team of just five people , including himself , crew chief Robby Keziah , crew guys Nick Reynolds and David Peters , and Mitchell ’ s wife , Heather , knew they would have their work cut out for them .
“ We wound up borrowing a few guys from Ziff Hudson ’ s crew , and even Ziff himself at one point ,” laughed Mitchell .
In PTC Radial vs . the World , Mitchell qualified 40th ( of fifty-seven cars entered ) with a 4.253 at 178.40mph hit in the eighth-mile .
His performance in Pro 275 was better , however , as the 4.241 at 180.24 mph pass the car churned out landed him second overall after
flame on
Mitchell lights up the South Georgia Motorsports Park eighth-mile with the trademark blue header flames of a “ lean and mean ” nitrous tune-up
four rounds of qualifying . Mitchell had strategized with fellow Pro 275 racer and teammate Ziff Hudson to strategically place themselves on opposite sides of the elimination ladders so they had a better chance of getting their team to the finals . As Mitchell ’ s car was so new , he didn ’ t have enough control over it and they wound up on the same side .
For his third class , Holley / Stainless Works Outlaw Drag Radial , Mitchell clicked off an impressive 4.174 at 181.28 mph pass and wound up second , just a hair behind top qualifier Bill Futch and his ’ 95 Mustang ’ s 4.146 at 187.28 mph effort .
“ If you could have seen what was going on in the pits … it was crazy ,” recalled Mitchell of the frantic pace at which the team had to get the Camaro turned around in time to make its next run . “ There were only one or two classes between each round , but it gave us enough time to do what we had to do .”
Mitchell didn ’ t make the field for Radial vs . the World , but wound up having to run two sets of
elimination rounds as he was still in contention for both pro 275 and Outlaw Drag Radial .
“ Once we made it past the first two rounds , Ziff ’ s car had a parts failure and we knew we only had one car to finish both ,” explained Mitchell of how his friend and teammate put his own work on hold to help with Mitchell ’ s shot at success . Not surprisingly , it would take near-perfect orchestration of the between-round operations in the pits be pull off competitive back-to-back runs .
“ We had one golf cart taking me to the starting line , one at the top end waiting on me , and two or three people holding fans on the transmission and motor ,” Mitchell outlined of their strategy to not waste any time .
As eliminations progressed and he remained in the game , the race became more and more of a blur for Mitchell .
“ It all happened so fast . All I can remember is getting pushed to the starting line – the rest was a blur ,” said Mitchell , still amazed by and grateful for all the friends that rallied around him . “ There were times where I didn ’ t even know what class I was running at the moment . I just went up there and got paired up . I was so focused on making my rounds , not red lighting , and getting the car down the track that I don ’ t even remember seeing anyone in the stands . It was unbelievable to see what that whole group got done , especially within the last four rounds which went off within twenty minutes of each other .”
PHOTO : CHRIS SEARS
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