Semi Finals

The first pair in the semis had Clark up against Rencher but Rencher’s blown 2002 Firebird wouldn’t fire. Clark had a bye run to the finals and to save parts he ran a shutoff 5.67 at just 85.55 mph. The other match up paired Chris Smith in his blown ‘63 ‘Vette and Chris Domino in his nitrous-juiced ‘02 Pontiac Grand Am. At the green Smith launched with a .030 light but suffered traction problems that had him pedaling to gain control. He ended up running an 8.95/49.21 but that effort was enough to go to the money round as Domino broke.

Finals

The finals matched up the winners of the last two TAO events from 2011, both supercharged cars. At the green Eric Clark got the jump with a .079 reaction time to Chris Smith’s .097. The two screaming Outlaws were door handle to door handle as they approached half track where the ‘63 ‘Vette of Smith made up the holeshot head start of Clark and then pulled ahead of him breaking the win beam first with a 4.16/154.80 to Clark’s game 4.32/137.66 mph.

Smith said after the win, “We are very pleased with the way things went tonight considering the work we had to do to get here. We always seem to do things at the last minute.”

The last minute decision to run Saturday paid off as Smith Racing has the trophy, winner’s check and points lead to start the season.

The first of 15 events is in the books for the Texas Automatic Outlaws and the Smith Racing Corvette and Clark Brothers Mustang showed that they will be serious contenders to take the 2012 series title. The next event will be Friday, March 23, at Texas Raceway in Kennedale, Texas. The TAO series will then return to Houston Motorsports Park following that event on Saturday, April 4.