Travis Esselman

In Limited Drag Radial, Travis Esselman’s 4.16 elapsed time confirmed it: Memphis International Raceway had both the bite and the beat to present a great race to all. But they really had to work for it.

On Friday, when the racing officially got under way, a weather front was moving in that greatly impacted everything. In a way, it brought out the best in the racers and the racing. It began on Friday morning with twice as many grains of water in the air and double the humidity of Thursday. Due to this shift in the weather pattern, the whole race tempo changed accordingly to meet the conditions.

The Friday racing schedule was originally set for two rounds of qualifying, but knowing a serious threatening weather front was closing in, Friday qualifying was bumped up to three rounds of qualifying for all classes, just in case Saturday was a rain-out. All three rounds of qualifying were completed between 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. for the eight classes of OSCR IV - Radial Vs the World, Limited Radial, Ultra Street, MX235, X275, Pro Street Motorcycle, 7.0 index and 6.0 index. What happened next was a great tribute to the racers who race Drag Radial events.

Richard Reagan, of Rutledge, TN, qualified middle of the pack with his ’91 Mustang, posting a 4.34 elapsed time. At night he was sporting wild nitrous flames to the 660-foot mark.