Outlaw Street Car Reunion IV at Memphis

Old School Style Drag Racing with Attitude

Words and photos by Tom McCarthy

After Saturday rain, Mother Nature smiled upon Memphis and racing was finished on Sunday.

The Outlaw Street Car Reunion IV event (OSCR-IV), held March 24-26 at the Memphis International Raceway was a modern era drag racing event with a touch of old-school style that rocked the house complete with a little Memphis Blues. Had Mother Nature not given everyone a case of the Blues on Saturday, via a total wash out for racing, the event would have rocked for three consecutive days and easily met all expectations. Early testing Thursday, pre-event, showed the track was there and so were the bad boys with all their bad toys, if only Mom had not rained on everyone’s parade, throughout Saturday.

On Thursday, a test and tune day was set aside for racers and the track prep by Kurt Johnson, Tyler Crossnoe and their support staff was just spot-on. No better testament to this than the performance of the Pro Street bikes that were in attendance to this event for the first time. Pro Street motorcycles, by their very nature, are extremely track surface dependant machines to produce to their performance potential. With only one DOT-type tire in contact with the racing surface, trying to hold close to 700 ponies, that will vault a glorified street bike from zero to over 200 MPH in about six seconds, these extreme race bikes require a very tight race track to do their thing.

Rodney Williford

Coming into the OSCR IV event, the Orient Express Official G.O.A.T. list (Greatest Of All Time) showed that a 6.70 and 220 MPH were the top numbers for a Pro Street motorcycle. Seven-ohs are expected, 6.90’s the norm, 6.80’s are where they all want to be, 6.70’s are a wow. First pass off the trailer, Rodney Williford of Rougemont, NC, power wheelied through a 6.79 elapsed time with a speed of 217 MPH, to open the testing for Pro Street bikes. Two hours later he drops a bomb: 6.68 at 221.20 MPH. No doubt about it, they had a serious race track on Thursday.

For the car crowd, their premier class of Radial Vs World, heavyweight Barry Mitchell came out and posted a 3.80 pass at 198.61 mph to confirm the race track was definitely a good one with plenty of bite.