Manuel whittled down a Quick Rod field with wins over Michael Pennington, Dale Scates, Carey Long and Scotty Campbell before meeting Patrick Forster – who had just won the championship in Hot Rod – in the final.

Despite the intimidation factor going up against a man who had already won one championship on the evening, Manuel showed no fear and hammered the tree with a .001 light while Forster went red giving the North Carolina native a win he will never forget.

“It was just another run and just another race for me,” Manuel said. “I didn’t treat it any different and we were able to come away with the win.”

Another man that probably shouldn’t have been in the winner’s circle is Michael Beard. While you might find that statement odd considering Beard’s former championship successes, but Beard was certainly not having that kind of weekend in Memphis.

Michael Beard

“I was having problems staging. Every time I would try to come up on the converter the thing was trying to die on me and if I went the other way I red lighted which I did on Friday. I honestly thought I didn’t have a chance at this thing,” Beard said. “I didn’t look at the weather all night, all my times slips stayed in my pocket, I didn’t put anything in the log book. I just thought we were going to be putting the thing on the trailer.

“But a number of people came through for me helped get it fixed and I couldn’t have done it without them. It really was an unbelievable turn of events to be standing here right now.”

Among those helping Beard get the car fixed was Tim Sloan, Mark Nowicki and Stock champion Brent Darroch. Once Beard got things back on track, he recorded round wins over Gianni Cantusci, Michael Crumpler and Brandon Peterson – someone who had been giving him fits as of late, before meeting Emily Volkman in the final.

In the championship tilt Beard had a .034 light and ran a 10.781/122.39 on a 10.73 dial in his 1980 Volare to edge Volkman’s 10.234/125.33 on a 10.19 giving Beard his first career Super Stock title.

Beard got into the tournament by via his Division 2 Super Stock title. Helping Beard to that title was Stock racer Brent Darroch who had his own luck on Saturday with another unexpected championship behind the wheel of his ’94 Camaro.