Big bracket names take Mega Bucks at Labor Day Huntsville go
Words and photos by Dale Wilson
Two of the greatest names in bracket racing, Scotty Richardson of Greenbriar, Tenn., and Johnny Labbous Sr. of Goodlettsville, Tenn., took on one another in the final of the last race of the Mega Bucks six-race series at Huntsville (Alabama) Dragway over the Labor Day weekend, with Richardson emerging the victor.
 Bracket great Scotty Richardson poses with mom, Mary, and crew people Brandon Jarrell and Amanda Betts after his Mega Bucks victory on Saturday. |
Scotty, racing three cars and with his mother, Mary, present, scored in his Chevy II when Labbous, also driving three cars, broke out on his 5.12-second dial in by a mere .005 seconds. The win was worth $7,500 to Richardson, but he also clinched the six-race Mega Bucks series, held over the spring and summer months at Huntsville Dragway and Memphis Motorsports Park by going one round further than No. 2 competitor Brian Robinson of Mississippi. That round won Richardson a new Danny Nelson/Racecraft Chassis dragster, while Robinson won an entry into the 2006 BTE Million Dollar Race, to be held September 13-17 at Memphis Motorsports Park.
In Sunday’s big Pro race, Ron Lane of Hixson, Tenn., came out of racing retirement and won over fellow dragster racer Kenny Joe Dixon of Calhoun, Ga. The win was worth $10,000. “Maybe I should re-retire and come back again in two years,” Lane told his wife and fellow racer, Eva. Ironically, just an hour later Dixon won a special 32-car shootout for an entry into the BTE Million; Lane had won the same shootout the day before.
In Footbrake on Saturday, Brad Ford of Gardendale, Ala., the 2005 Huntsville Footbrake champ and who was enjoying a 20-round lead in 2006 Huntsville Footbrake points, won over Adam Davis of Cullman, Ala. And on Sunday, professional Footbrake racer Steve Stites of Falkner, Miss., (yes, he DOES race Footbrake for a living) beat David Easterly of Dunlap, Tenn., for the crown. Stites, like his mentor, Steve Taylor of North Carolina, raced his ’94 Cavalier to 10-second eighth-mile victory, one of four he owns just for Footbrake racing.
 Steve Stites of Mississippi won Footbrake Eliminator on Sunday at Huntsville Dragway’s Mega Bucks finals. Stites, a professional Footbraker who races with son Dylan, has four identical Cavaliers at his disposal, and as of Labor Day has been in 51 Footbrake finals since early spring. |
Stites races with the use of just one eye. He lost his left eye as a teenager in a stickball accident. With his win at Huntsville over the Labor Day weekend, he won $1,000 for finishing No. 1 in Mega Bucks points, a $1,000 TCI gift certificate and a set of Hoosier racing tires.
Other winners in Huntsville’s special 32-car shootouts --- for entries into the BTE Million for Pro cars and entries into the $100,000 Halloween Classic for Footbrakers, to be held at Montgomery Motorsports Park over the Halloween weekend --- were Scottie Walters of Whitwell, Tenn.; Brad Ford; John Burleson of Etheridge, Tenn.; and Jason Young of Etowah, Tenn.
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