First time DRO AA/FC Challenge competitor Canadian car owner/driver Todd Lesenko and his tuner Jon Wurtz demonstrated that they had made the long tow from Phoenix where the Jolly Rogers car is housed to Kansas City with intentions of winning. During qualifying they were the only team in the fives, running a 5.961 and a 5.987, and the odds-on favorite to win going into Eliminations. Their closest competitor for ET was Anthony Bronge in the Jerry Newman-tuned “Punisher” ’69 Camaro who ran 6.03 in the second round of qualifying.

The first two rounds of AA/FC Eliminations were originally scheduled to be run Saturday night but a violent lightning/rain storm came in about 6 p.m. and not only drove home a large spectator crowd but forced the race organizers to move all three rounds of Eliminations to Sunday.

It continued to rain most of the night and there was a heavy fog on the ground until about 9 o’clock Sunday morning but then the fog lifted and the sun came out. The KCIR and Muscle Car Reunion track crews went to work getting the track ready for racing and by 12:30 the first round of Eliminations for the AA/FC were under way.

The KCIR track surface was admittedly a little tricky on Sunday due to the extremely high humidity and temperatures but if the tuner and driver were on their game the KCIR track was willing to give-up some serious numbers.