High Fives – Tom Bailey Sets New Speed Record in Route to Capturing Peak Street Car Shootout Victory at Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway
Once a year, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) visits Joliet, Illinois and Route 66 Raceway for their Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK Performance.
Part of this event is the PEAK Street Car Shootout, showcasing some of the quickest rides in the drag and drive community, and for the third year in 2025, eight contestants rolled into Illinois to determine the champion.
Leading the eight rides would be the defending champion Schroder-Ens team, with David Schroeder at the wheel of the nitrous-fed C7 Corvette. 2023 event winner Bryant Goldstone returned at the wheel of his ’73 AMC Javelin, looking for a second title in three years.
The remaining six spots included Tom Bailey with the ‘Sick Seconds 2.0’ 1969 Camaro, Craig Groebner and his twin-turbo ’71 Chevrolet Nova, Alex Taylor’s ’55 Chevrolet, the ’82 Camaro of Nick Taylor, Tom McGilton and his 2013 Camaro, and the lone naturally-aspirated ride, the ’85 Ford Mustang of Ed Ensor.
The group would participate in a Thursday cruise on the streets of Joliet, before returning to the track to make a pair of qualifying runs in preparation for eliminations. The first round of qualifying had several that struggled with the surface, but Goldstone negotiated it for a 6.67 at 215 mph, while the Mustang of Ensor clocked a 7.28 at 189 mph run.
Qualifying round two is where things got interesting, and it started with Bailey getting everyone’s attention with a 5.793 at 263.51 mph blast! That’s the second quickest run Bailey has ever recorded in the Camaro, and his best speed ever.
The 263.51 mph speed would also register as the NHRA’s fastest run ever recorded by a full-bodied car at an NHRA event. “That run showed our 3.86 run at Sick At The Rock is that maybe we’re getting Sick Seconds 2.0 figured out again,” said Bailey.
The very next pair had Goldstone setting a personal best in his Javelin, a 6.37 at 227 mph! The next pair also had Alex Taylor setting her new personal best time, a 6.60 at 219 mph! McGilton clocked a 7.14 at 204.35 mph as well, and that would prepare the competitors for round one of eliminations.
Round one would be determined by a blind draw, and started with Schroder versus Goldstone. Schroder got the holeshot, but immediately ran into problems, while Goldstone would click it off early for an 8.22 at just 133 mph win light. Groebner and McGilton rolled to the starting line next, and Groebner left a red light at the starting line to give McGilton a coasting 9.79-second win.
Alex Taylor got a single when Ensor wasn’t able to make the call due to a broken transmission, and she clocked low e.t. of the round at 6.62 with a new personal best 219.83 mph! That left Nick Taylor and Tom Bailey to duke it out for the last spot in round two, and although Nick Taylor left Bailey sitting at the starting line, Bailey recovered to post a 6.65 at 175 mph to cover the 8.08 at 136 mph of Nick Taylor.
The semifinal draw pitted Alex Taylor opposite Bailey in the first match of the round, and at the Christmas Tree drop, Taylor was on the move first. But her ’55 Chevrolet ran into traction problems, while Bailey dropped the low e.t. of the event a little more with a 5.787 at 256.31 mph.
Bailey’s run came with a little bit of a smoke show at the top end, as an oil line came lose from the engine to cause a small fire as he concluded the run. Thankfully, the NHRA’s Safety Safari was on top of it, and kept the damage to a minimum.
Goldstone and McGilton would battle for the other final round spot, and this would be all Goldstone, as he had the better reaction time and elapsed time as well, with his 6.72 at 221 mph dispatching the 7.16 at 202 mph from McGilton.
The final round would be a rematch of last year’s first round match-up of Bailey versus Goldstone, and after some clean up and replacing a few pieces, Bailey would roll to the starting to face Goldstone.
Goldstone knew he faced a tall task to get around Bailey’s 5-second performances, and in an effort to get the reaction time advantage, he red lighted away his chances. Bailey made a full pull, clocking a 5.81 at 253 mph to get the victory.
“I’m sure when somebody downloads the data (from the runs), they are going to be like ‘you were all over the place,’” said Bailey. “We went through the field; we were obviously the one to beat, and we had to screw up for somebody else to win or have a problem. Normally we’re good at doing that. This time, we were able to pull it off and get three runs back-to-back.”
Watch our two videos on the event below:
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and Megan Taylor - video courtesy of Sick The Magazine and NHRAtv.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com