Cheetah Chip (Tish Dingman Photos)

The final round in Outlaw 10.5/Drag Radial class was the best of the event. Cheetah and Bales staged carefully and when the amber flashed Bales was long gone with a perfect triple-0 RT to Cheetah’s pedestrian .066. Chip once again had the low ET and Top Speed of the round with a 4.916/149.41 while Bales led all the way to the finish stripe with a 4.989/148.99 before Chip caught and passed him to get the win by just .007 of a second.

The “B” field had 12 cars. Another Texan, Terry Thompson from Amarillo, ran Zack Weidel from Eufaula, Oklahoma, in the final. Weidel strapped a .080 holeshot on Thompson but couldn’t hold on for the win as Thompson drove by on the top end of the track with a 5.033/142 effort to Wiedel’s losing 5.142/136.43.

OUTLAW 10.5


Ten cars qualified for the Outlaw 10.5 competition. Mike Kimmis was the number-one qualifier and almost ran the table but had to settle for the runner-up money when he was beaten in the final by the Cadillac XLR driven by Scott Lowery. Lowery overcame a .009 holeshot, using his 4.231/186.98 to drive around Kimmis’s 4.27/190.46 for the win.

On an historical note, this is the first time the staff of DRO can remember a Cadillac of any kind wining a heads-up drag race.

CONCLUSION

The promoters at Tulsa have proven that an ADRL race isn’t the only event where a program of charging fans to park their car, van, bus or whatever at a race and not charge them for admission will be successful. According to the track, they parked in excess of 8,000 cars and had over 30,000 fans over the three-day event.

The success of this race is no fluke. It is so successful the track has two of these races each year and the Southwest doorslammer racers and fans of those cars have demonstrated they certainly will support this type of event.