Mutt & Jeff Race at Beaver Springs, PA

Rain shortens event, but not the winning money

For the fifth straight year, Paul Burress and Dylan Griffey, aka Mutt & Jeff Promotions, brought their high-dollar bracket race north to Beaver Springs Dragway in central Pennsylvania. New track owner Mike McCracken has made a lot of improvements to the facility and the pair of Mutt & Jeff wanted to be a part of the improvements.

Over the past five years, the event has grown bigger each year. Two classes of competition, Super Pro and Footbrake, combined to bring a big field to the event. Three days of high dollar bracket racing began on Friday, June 14, with the Footbrake class racing down to one winner with that winner inserted into the next round of Super Pro. Door cars and dragsters also were run separately until the ladder round of 16 or fewer cars.

Footbrake winner for Friday was Rory Krupp when Bob Flick red-lighted in the Footbrake final. In addition to receiving a $750 bonus, Krupp moved into round seven of the Super Pro class.

As for Super Pro, the round five combatants were Andy Dolan with two entries, Brian Nolf, Mike Daymude, Tony Hill, Jeff Krushinski, Jack Ostrowski, Chey Dragon and Jesse Alberts. Survivors of that round were Dolan (still with two entries left), Nolf, recent $20K winner from last week Dragon, and Ostrowski.

That round set up the semifinals with Dolan, Nolf, Dragon and Krupp. Three door cars, and the altered of Dragon. Dragon’s almost Cinderella story of two big wins in a row came to an end both he and Dolan ran dead-on their dial-ins with the slightest margin and the win going to Dolan. In the other half of the semis, Nolf’s car sputtered on the starting line giving Footbrake winner Krupp the win.

Andy Dolan

For the final, it was Footbrake against delay box with both racers set up on kill. But it was over before it started when Krupp turned it -.002 on the red side. Ironically, Dolan also turned it -.002 red, but due to their dial-ins, Krupp did it first which allowed Dolan the take the money back home with him to Martinsburg, WV.

With rain predicted for Sunday, the officials decided to combine Saturday and Sunday’s purses ($15K-to-win on Saturday and $5K-to-win on Sunday) into one race on Saturday. Racers ran for $20K-to-win with the entire purse, along with the doubling of any random round prizes, guaranteed.

Marty Flegal was the Footbrake finalist.

The Footbrake class cars were run separately down to one and then moved into the Super Pro or Box class semifinal. The final in Footbrake paired Marty Flegal and John Binkle with a $1,750 bonus going to the winner. In that final, Binkle ran under his dial to move Flegal, who is no stranger to big money bracket racing, into the semifinal.

The final four were three dragsters and one door car which turned a little anticlimactic when Flegal turned it -.002 red to advance S&W Race Cars’ Randy Krause and Jimmy Zimmerman’s car broke in the staging lanes to allow Best Appearing Dragster winner Tony Hill a free ride to the $20K final.