Words and photos by Chris Graves

The Royal Purple Outlaw Fuel Altered series kicked off the second half of their 2009 season at North Star Dragway in Denton, Texas, on August 15. Coming fresh off his first series win at the last event, Donny McSwain and the “II N’Tense” team came to battle eleven other hungry teams all hoping for a fun and fast night of fuel altered action. 

North Star Dragway announcer Nic Duty made the call to bring em to the lanes with Brad Rigler and Rich Howell starting off the action in first session of qualifying.

Rigler, fresh off an impressive runner-up finish at the last event, laid down a stout 4.04 at 177 mph in the “Toxic” machine but the action wasn’t over yet. Rigler had his hands full at the top end getting his machine slowed down and ended up going into the catch net at the top end. 

“I hit the chutes and they didn’t deploy. I got on the brake and it started bouncing very hard. I hit the chutes again and felt nothing, got back on the brakes and the bouncing got even worse. I knew I was going too fast to take the turn so I figured the best move was to send it into the net.  After getting out and surveying the scene, one chute was wrapped up in the wheelie bar and one never deployed.  Unfortunately, we suffered quite a bit of damage in doing so which ended not only our night, but our season. We are going to re-group, take our time putting it back together and come back ready to win races in 2010,” reports Rigler.

Nick Poloson in the “Sundown” and Terry Anglin’s “Psychotic Express” resumed action with another action packed pairing.  Anglin carried the front wheels past the tree steadily drifting toward the centerline, while Poloson also fought to keep his car in the groove.  Anglin took out a cone on his way to a 4.77 with Poloson clicking off a 4.42 at 147 mph. 

DoDad Burton (shown) clicked off a solid 4.25 at 163 mph in the “Free Spirit” machine while John Broussard had to click it off early to a 5.21 in the “Purple Haze.”  Mary Reep rolled out next in the “Grim Reeper” with McSwain along side. Reep blasted to an impressive 4.02 at 178 mph hugging the wall at the big end, with McSwain right behind her with a 4.09 at 175 mph.