In the next round, Bob Vorderer did the same, going red by -.031, as Coughlin laid down a nice 6.31 pass, which backed up his record-shattering 6.27 qualifying hit. The finals came down to a match between Chris Rini’s nitrous machine and Coughlin’s 830 ci monster. When the lights dropped, Coughlin reacted first with a .032 to a .037, and it was wheel-to-wheel, but Rini simply could not get around him. Coughlin won the match with a 6.33 to Rini’s 6.34.   

In Super Street Outlaw, three-time NMRA Drag Radial champ John Kolivas [far lane] showed up to the Super Bowl this weekend with a 427 ci small-block Ford (pushed by a Precision 94mm turbo) under the hood of his SN95 Mustang, looking to give this decade-old heads-up class a try. But instead of wearing the class’s 10.5”x 28” slicks under his Mustang, he ran small, 275x60x15” Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials.

Incredibly, he was able to annihilate the unofficial record for the quickest and fastest on that tire when he ran an incredible 7.33 at over 190+ mph. He proceeded to qualify a tick behind the number one qualifier John Urist, with a 7.39 to Urist’s 7.38.

In eliminations, Kolivas got faster with each pass, taking out Brad Medlock and John Macdonald en route to the finals where he met up with Urist. At the hit, Urist uncharacteristically lit the red by only .006, giving Kolivas his first win in SSO. The question now is; how many SSO regulars are going to start testing on 275 tires? We’ll find out at the next race a Z-Max Raceway on August 6-9 later this year.

In Super Street, nine outlaws showed up to put their high-powered machines to the test, but it was the 2007 class champion, Jim Blair, who was able to make it happen on Sunday. After taking out Jill Hicks with an incredible 6.80 run, Blair went on to beat Tony Nesbitt with a 6.94 pass.

In the semis, Blair was set to face Mike Yedgarian. Blair prevailed once again when the tree came down - Yedgarian went red by -.008 as Blair nailed a .013 and posted a 7.15. Frank Mewshaw, who had been running well on his side of the ladder with a few 7.00 passes, was suppose to face Blair for the final, but couldn’t make the call. This handed the win to the ProCharger-equipped Mustang of Blair after simply tripping the beams and backing it out to save his last run for the NMRA car he would be facing in the shootout.