The Schroeder Ens Team Scores Sick the Mag Drag-And-Drive Shootout Victory at NMCA / NMRA Power Festival at US 131 Motorsports Park
Following a successful first year in joining forces with the National Muscle Car Association (NMCA), Sick the Magazine returns to the NMCA event series with a pair of drag-and-drive shootout appearance in 2024.
The first was recently completed during the NMCA / National Mustang Racers Association (NMRA) Power Festival, held last weekend at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, with David Schroeder emerging the champion in the Schroeder Ens Corvette.
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An eight-car invitational style class, the competitors would get two shots at the race track on Friday, plus an additional run on Saturday morning, before doing a cruise and lunch meet up amongst the competitors. The competitors would then pull chips to determine who would get paired up for first round of competition.
The class featured some of the quickest rides in the drag-and-drive community. On the big-tire power-adder side, combatants included the nitrous Corvette of the Schroeder-Ens team with Schroeder at the controls, the twin-turbo ‘Boostmaster’ Chevrolet station wagon of Steve Morris, and Don Foess with his S-10 pick-up.
For the power-adder rides on drag radials, Michigan got to see Alan Whitaker’s Sick Summer winning ‘Greenie’ 1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the Diehl brothers LS-turbocharged Mustang with David at the wheel, and Carl Stancell’s turbo-boosted S-10 Blazer.
We were also joined by two of the quickest naturally-aspirated rides to compete in drag-and-drive, ‘Fast Eddie’ Ensor’s 1985 Ford Mustang, and Matt Sweet’s Sick Week winning 1976 Chevy Nova.
Round one started with Ensor battling Whitaker, and at the green light on the Christmas Tree, Ensor got the better reaction time. He was ahead nearly the entire eighth of-a-mile distance, but Whitaker just caught him at the top end, and the resulting 4.71 at 161 mph for Whitaker nipped the 4.77 of Ensor by a scant eleven thousandths of-a-second!
An all-Michigan battle put Morris and Foess on the starting line next, and this one was all Morris with his 4.36 at 178 mph blast covering the troubled 7.42 at 90 mph from Foess.
Diehl would face Schroeder in the third pairing, and the Corvette led wire-to-wire with a 4.10 at 177 mph covering the small-tire Mustang’s 4.89 at 150 mph.
The final pair should have seen Sweet staging against Stancell, but Sweet’s ride had some issues on his final time shot and couldn’t make the call for round one, giving Stancell a single 5.25 at 135 mph lap to advance him to Sunday’s second round of eliminations.
With four cars remaining to decide the finalists, Schroeder would stage up with Whitaker in Sunday morning’s first pair. After a near even start, Schroeder would arrive at the finish line first with a coasting 4.45 at 146 mph lap, with Whitaker not far behind at 4.77.
Morris and Stancell would determine which boosted ride would face the Corvette in the final, and Morris would produce his best pass of eliminations with a 4.28 at 180 mph to defeat the 5.17 at 138 mph from Stancell.
The stage was set; Morris with a chance to defend his win at US 131 Motorsports Park from a year ago, and possibly score his second victory of 2024 to complement the Drop the Hammer drag-and-drive event win he collected recently.
But the Schroeder-Ens team had been making some of the quickest laps of the event, and Schroeder was looking for his second win of the year to complement his invitational win at the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Route 66 Nationals in May.
The final was set, and just after 2 pm, both cars rolled through the starting line on tire-smoking burnouts. But just after backing up, a part was discovered on Morris’ side of the race track, and he was shut off to give Schroeder a single, which he used for a 4.09 at 180 mph blast with a 1.00 60 foot time!
The part was Morris’ fuel cap, left off by accident in the pits, and once discovered and discussed, Schroeder and Morris agreed the final needed to be re-done. Just a couple hours later, it would be the turbo versus nitrous final once again, this time with both vehicles making it to the starting line.
At the green, Schroeder was off like a shot with a nearly-perfect .001 reaction time. A .998 60 foot paved the way to the team’s second-straight 4.09 elapsed time, this one at 178 mph, to hold off the 4.52 at 172 mph from Morris for the victory.
The second Sick the Mag Drag-and-Drive Shootout of the year will take place next month in Norwalk, Ohio at Summit Motorsports Park as part of the NMCA All-American Nationals on August 23rd through the 25th.
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine, NMCA, Hard Target Images, Alan Whitaker.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com