Wolford's Bad Bird Best at Beech Bend!

Words by Bob Wilkiewicz
Photos by Evan Perkins

Jason Wolford and his NSS/E 1965 Buick Skylark stopped Doug Duell’s remarkable winning streak of three straight Dave Duell Classic wins with a classic win of his own. Even more remarkable was the fact that Wolford retired in 2005 and hadn’t raced since until returning to competition at this year’s Dave Duell Classic at Beech Bend Raceway Park. This was Wolford’s first competition in eight years; he hadn’t raced since his father, Earl Wolford, passed away in 2005.
     
Wolford won the 2013 Dave Duell Classic Nostalgia Super Stock Nationals, held Aug. 2-4, when in the finals defending champion Doug Duell unexpectedly went -0.016 red in the sixth and final round of the annual event.

“I was being careful on the ‘tree,” said Wolford, who came from the 35th qualifying spot to the finaland reacted 0.045 while receiving a 2.5-second handicap head start. “I figured it would be real close towards the finish line and we would be pacing together pretty well.”

Wolford’s ’65 Buick had been in storage until just a month before this event. Just two weeks before the race Wolford and his brother, Dale, also an NMCA racer, tested the Buick to figure out what index they should chose. They choose to run a 12.00 index.

The defeat ended a season-opening three-event NMCA winning streak for Duell, a two-time NMCA season champion (2009 and 2010) who admitted to be being somewhat pumped at the prospect of making it four consecutive event victories.

“I was really, really excited turning the car around the corner and into the water box. I had to keep telling myself to calm down,” said Duell, who is also the host for the race named after his late father. “My reaction times had been coming down all day. The car hit hard so I knew it was going to be really good or really bad.”

In the semifinals, Wolford wiggled past Jimmy Ray in a double-breakout contest 11.971 to 10.453, which highlighted a 0.0095 first and 0.0185 margin-of-victory.

 “Thanks to Jason -- he showed me driving the stripe to +0.009 isn’t good enough,” joked Ray.

Then Duell downed Coy Templeton, also running NSS/E, 0.017 to 0.028 and 9.529 to 12.027 in a closer 0.092 MOV.