Stevie Fast Jackson Reigns Supreme in Radial Versus the World, Devin Vanderhoof / Josh Davis and Lou Iacopetti Earn Victories in the Street Car Braggin Rights Classes at Lights Out 15 in Georgia
After five days of action at South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP), one of the biggest drag radial tire themed races is in the books as Lights Out 15 has crowned champions in multiple classes.
The event, which normally draws large counts of racers and thousands of spectators, once again delivered on that promise for new SGMP owner Raul Torres and his crew.
And while there were several classes of competition, the Radial Versus the World class always commands a good bit of attention. This year, the new Street Car Braggin Rights classes also drew a large car count, including a good number of drag-and-drive competitors.
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Stevie ‘Fast’ Jackson set the tone that he was back for the throne right out of the gate, qualifying on top of the Radial Versus the World class with a 3.58 at 208 miles per hour run on the first qualifying session. It cost him a blower though, and after failing to improve on that first run, Jackson rolled into eliminations bumped to the second spot when Bryan Markiewicz out-qualified him in the final session.
With lots of cars in the 3.5 and 3.6-second range, eliminations were a hot ticket on Saturday to watch. But before that took place, Jackson had already sweetened his weekend by dispatching Jimmy Taylor in a single run match race for a reported $20,000 payday.
Once in eliminations mode, Jackson kept the train rolling, opening with a first round victory and a 3.59 at 207 mph time slip. He improved to a 3.55 at 209 mph in round two, which earned him a semifinal round berth against Chris Daniel, the number three qualifier.
An all-Georgia battle would find Jackson unleashing low elapsed time of the event, a 3.517 at 212.43 mph, to defeat Daniel and move to the final against another supercharged Camaro, Jeff Miller.
For $50,100, it would be the ‘Bumble Bee’ Camaro Miller against the ‘Shadow 3.0’ of Jackson, and at the tree drop Miller got a slight .018 to .024 reaction time advantage. But Jackson would pull even by the 60 foot mark, and pulled away after that to establish low e.t. and top speed of the event, a 3.504 at 213.06 mph as Miller slowed with engine problems.
The other class that garnered a lot of attention was the new Braggin Rights’ Street Car Braggin Rights class. With $12,000 in payouts amongst a pair of 16-car qualified fields, some seriously quick street cars came out to participate. The classes included teching for street legal requirements, and a 30-minute cruise right before round one of eliminations.
The team of Josh Davis and Devin Vanderhoof showed they would be one of the favorites in the quicker of the two classes, Street Car Braggin Rights Extreme. Opening with a shot of 6.43 at 216 mph, Davis wheeled the ’93 Mustang convertible known as ‘Big Ern’ to a 6.46 at 221 mph in round two to defeat fellow Sick Week competitor Larry Albright.
Davis clocked a 6.45 at 222 mph in the semifinals to turn away Joe Glockner, earning himself a final round berth against Eric Funk, who had clocked 6.93 at 203 mph blast on his semifinal round defeat of Sick Week participant Mike Cataline.
In the final round, they left on the green light just two thousandths of-a-second apart, and less than seven seconds later, they crossed the finish line where Davis’s 6.60 at 207 mph got the win and the seventy-five-hundred-dollar payday over the 6.97 at 199 mph blast from Funk’s Dodge Dart.
The Street Car Braggin Rights Wild class, the slightly-slower group of sixteen cars, found Lou Iacopetti as the top qualifier with an 8.45. Iacopetti would make his way through the field with a pair of mid 8-second performances to line up with Tony Whetstone in the final round, who guided his Mustang convertible past Sick Week competitor Jordan Boudreaux and posted his best run, an 8.29, in the semifinals.
In the final round, Iacopetti and Whetstone left the starting line almost together. At the eighth-mile, Iacopetti’s Grand National was out in front, but Whetstone was reeling him in. At the finish line, it was nearly a photo finish, with Iacopetti’s 8.38 at 164 mph edging out the 8.39 at 166 mph from Whetstone for the win and the three-thousand-dollar payout.
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine, Braggin Rights, Steve Jackson Racing and TBM Brakes.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com