Moss crew-chiefed for Gass after his second-round loss. “I held the light, handed him the wrenches and mostly stayed out of the way,” said the modest Moss of Paducah, Ky.

Going seven brutal rounds for the win was an emotional journey for Gass, whose mother passed away six months ago. On the drivers side window, he had written the words, ‘For mother and Brad’ while in the winner’s circle.

Kevin and Kim Gass both work for Holley Performance Products.

“I got just enough good runs and just enough lucky ones,” said Gass. “It’s hard to express what this win means to me. I very much appreciate all the help and support from the entire NSS community.”

Sanford, Florida’s Barry Dorn qualified 6th and went to the final round against Kevin Gass before bowing out.

For Dorn, it was a mostly successful outing in a new car, a ’68 wedge-powered Dodge Dart, which commanded a striking appearance in a late model yellow body color with a hood and accent graphics in black.

“I’m really a B-body guy but this one was so good when I came across it, I figured I needed to work with it and see what might happen,” said Dorn, whose event run got him to the top of the NMCA NSS season points standings.

Dorn reacted 0.067 in a semifinal bye run, his first uncontested run of the race but slipped to 0.109 in the final. “I needed to swap those two around,” he said.

Geary Bates of Winterville, Ohio, and his red ’67 Ford, battered by breakage in recent years, was the other semifinalist, falling to Gass in round six.


Jeff Frees  (Matt Mothershed photo)

Jeff Frees of Hortonville, Wisc., and host Doug Duell of Newburgh, Ind., both with ’64 Plymouths, fought in the final of Saturday’s Opel Engineering FX Shootout, with Frees coming out the winner, 9.735 (C/FX 9.75 index) to 9.473 (B/FX index 9.50).

Duell said he was pleased with the event in its return to the Gateway track. “We had a good car count, mostly good weather and good management,” he said. “There was some tremendous racing by a quality field, especially on Saturday in the class runoffs. It was the right decision to come back here.”