NMRA at Milan

Words and photos by Greg Acosta

The 8th Annual Roush Yates NMRA Ford Nationals held at Milan Dragway is traditionally a two-day event, but Mother Nature had different plans for the NMRA, as the skies opened up on Saturday and intermittently delayed the program. However, the staff and racers pushed on and got the race completed by lunchtime Sunday.

In Super Street Outlaw action, six-time class-champion John “The Fireball” Urist set the bar for the class with a 7.21 at 198 miles per hour. The next three qualifiers – Andrew DeMarco, Chris Tuten, and John Kolivas, in that order – were all within .008 of each other and just half-a-tenth from Urist. Going into eliminations, Urist was the man to beat and it showed, as he cut through the field with a string of low sevens. On the other side of the ladder, Kolivas had his eyes set on the final, arriving there via a pair of broken singles, setting up a rematch from Joliet. This time, the roles would be reversed as Urist streaked to another low-seven-second elapsed time while Kolivas had to abort the run, handing the win to Urist.

EFI Renegade had a light field in Milan, as the racers recover from the Joliet event just three weeks prior. Of the four who made the trip, Brian Mitchell took the top spot with an 8.58-second qualifying effort, besting the rest of the field by anywhere from .021-.049 seconds.  While looking good going into eliminations, Mitchell threw away the weekend with a heart-breaking .001-second red light start, advancing Alton Clements to the final round.  On the other side of the ladder, Chad Allmandinger advanced over a troubled run by Bryan Muth to face Clements in the final. The final round was over before it started as Allmandinger launched his wild Capri .012 seconds too early, tripping the foul light and crowning Clements as the weekend’s champion.

Eight cars came out to Milan to battle in Drag Radial. Sean Lyon absolutely rocked the field with a stout 7.59-second qualifying effort, which put him a tenth-and-a-half ahead of his nearest competitor, Jason Lee. Lyon’s weekend ended in the first round, however, when his transbrake failed and he rolled the beams before the tree could activate, making it anyone’s race. Keeping up with his past two performances, Andy Manson cut through his side of the ladder to make it to the final round, defeating Orson Johnson and Trace Meyer en route. On the other side of the field, Lee was rubbing his lucky horseshoe as Brian Tuten was unable to make first round and Ronnie Diaz unleashed a huge red light in the semis, making it a Lee-Manson final. Manson was away first, but his lead was cut when he was forced to lift on the top end, allowing Lee to streak to victory.