Immokalee Regional Raceway traditionally saves the best for last with back-to-back weekends in November , closing out the season with some highdollar bracket racing . Things got started with Winterfest , followed by the Winter Warmup , which totaled eight days of racing between both events . Drag IllustrateD was on hand for the Winter Warmup season finale , which put a period on the 2021 season at Immokalee , until things get cranked back up in January after a short break .
Eliminations were in full swing midweek at the Winter Warmup , with the first payday happen-ing on Wednesday , as Johnny Tolisano took home the $ 10,000 main event purse after getting past George Ebel .
On Thursday , Chris Cadle scored the win over Steve Muller . Cadle was right back in the finals on Friday as well , but came up just short against the always tough Gage Burch .
Saturday ’ s main event was the richest payday of the weekend , with $ 25,000 up for grabs in the Mike Crick Memorial race , with Travis Logan taking top honors . Logan held off Paul Skinger
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in the thrilling finals .
After the main event , Immokalee hosted their first-ever “ Back Tire Shootout ,” which drew more onlookers than even the main event . The idea was to have 16 dragsters pitted against 16 door cars in a dial-in-style bracket race , only they had to stage with the back tires . Dragsters and door cars were
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separated until the final run-off to determine an overall winner , with $ 5,000 being awarded to the winner and $ 1,000 for runner-up .
In the end , Mike Valli and his dragster emerged victorious over the S-10 truck of Nick Ferraro . “ This was the first time we ever tried this type of race and it was a big hit !” says Ralph Hes-
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAN ABERNETHY AND THOMAS HESTER |
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