Words by Jeff Burk - Photos by Steve Gruenwald, Ron Lewis, Steve Embling and Todd Dziadosz

One of the largest sportsman fields was on hand for the 2009 NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla. About 320 sportsman cars passed tech and raced for four days in the heat and humidity of northern Florida.

The largest car count was found in the Super Stock Eliminator with 93 cars answering the call for first round of Eliminations. The smallest turnout was in Alky Funny where there were just 14 cars. That makes a sad statement about the T/AF class.

The Sportsman racer that gets the DRO nod for the best performance would be Mopar Super Stock racer James Caro who qualified his Dodge Stratus in the number one spot and went on to the final round in Super Stock before losing to Herbie Null and his Chevy Camaro.

And let’s not forget Frank “The Punisher” Manzo who ran the table on the competition again. All the Jersey racer did was set Top Speed and Low ET for the TA/FC class, qualify on the pole and crush all of his opponents. So what’s new about that? Manzo may be the reason the car count in the class is low; no one else is close to him when it comes to on-track performance.

TOP ALKY DRAGSTER

The nitro-burning A/FD cars dominated this class. Bill Reichert qualified on the pole with a 5.299/270.92 lap, but when he got to the final round he fell prey to fellow nitro-burner Duane Shields. Reichert had won 17 titles going into the finals against Shields who had made the long tow from Arizona for this race. Shields ran a 5.27 in a semi-final thrashing of local Florida nitro racer Artie Allen. Reichert probably figured he would have to step up to beat Shields and went into shake and tire smoke right off the line, and Shields motored to a 5.283/271.41 winning lap.

Eleven of the 16 qualifiers for the class (23 cars tried to qualify) were nitro-injected racers and just five had superchargers. Despite the fact that the NHRA recently restricted the legal percentage to 94 percent nitro for those that burn nitro fuel, those cars continue to dominate the class.