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Friday Night
May 8th Drag Races
By: Tyler O’Donnell
The rain managed to hold off on Friday, May 9th as the footbrake, street trophy, and sportsmen’s street classes got to take their cars to the Clarksville Speedway Drag Strip. Speeds topped 110 mph during time trials and kept that pace during the races.
Robby Martin out of Clarksville TN got the win in the footbrake class, pulling off the upset against Ronald Long, who got the bye heading into the final round. Martin’s reaction time on the tree was .6101 to long .6119. At the other end, Martin got a 6.21 E.T. on a dial in of 6.13 topping 111.32 mph to pick up the win, to Long dial in of 8.90 and E.T. of 8.83 with a 70.66 MPH
In the street trophy finals, it was Jimmy Bannister Jr. from Lavergne, who took away the win against Wesley Svatba. Bannister’s reaction time at the tree was .5341 to Svatba’s .6040. Bannister’s received a 11.4018 E.T.on a dial in of 11.41, producing a speed of 56.82 mph. Svatba had a 10.4330 E.T. on a dial in of 10.49. He topped 65.58 mph. Bannister’s win, in his #86 Lincoln town car, was his first of two victories on the night. Bannister also got the win in the Sportman’s street class. Bannister competed against Janet Mulderink, who was one of only two women competing on Friday. Mulderink impressively drove her number 79 Camaro into the final round, but lost to Bannister by just half a second. Bannister had a reaction time of .5279 to Mulderink’s .6222. At the finish line, Bannister had a 11.4720 E.T. on a dial time 11.40. Mulderink had an 8.0368 E.T., crossing the finish with a dial time of 8.01. In all, Bannister finished ahead of all 37 drivers that he entered against.
There were a few drivers that had their troubles at the starting line. One of those drivers was Roy Mayfield, who got the red light for jumping out too quickly. That prevented Mayfield from advancing to the top three in footbrake. John Perry, who posted one of the fastest times in time trials in footbrake, was upset by Brooks Underwood in round three. However, Underwood was not around much longer, losing to Martin in the fourth round. Both Perry and Underwood, along with many other drivers, will get their chances again next week to get in the finals.
Next week we start the week with test and tune on Wednesday, then on Thursday we will have a gambler race. On Friday, May 15 it will be the first 10,000 to win for footbrake.
Drag racing at the speedway is every Friday night at 7 pm. Come out and watch the best drag racers in TN compete.
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