After a notable 2023 season where this 1993 Ford Mustang convertible picked up a trio of drag and drive wins, including the Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive and the Sick Summer Presented by TBM Brakes event, owner Devin Vanderhoof decided to make some major changes in 2024.

That list included a switch from a stock-style suspension to an aftermarket (parallel) 4-link suspension, double frame railing the Mustang, upgrading the roll cage to a 25.1 / 25.2 SFI-certification, and putting the car on a diet and removing around 200 pounds of heft.

Vanderhoof and Davis started their 2025 season with a win at this year’s Sick Week in the Modified class, including a new personal best pass of 6.37 at 227 mph at Gainesville Raceway (with eighth-mile numbers of 4.23 at 181 mph).

Just a couple week later, Vanderhoof and Davis returned to South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP) for the popular radial tire Lights Out event to participate in the ‘Braggin Rights’ street car class. After a few days of work, the team captured the overall title with a 6.38 at 228 mph final round blast.

But a recent test session at Carolina Dragway yielded a performance number they've been working towards for a long time.

After watching drag and drive on YouTube for years, I thought I might have a good baseline on what to expect when I attended my first event, Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive, in 2022. I was so wrong, but in the right way.

We’ve all heard the stories about competitors helping each other to get to that final day, that final pass, to FINISH. I’m lucky enough to talk about these stories, on the mic and on the web. And they happen in the super competitive world of heads-up racing too.

Just a few days ago, I attended the Lights Out 16 event at South Georgia Motorsports Park. One of the events that helped push drag radial racing into the spotlight more, I hadn’t been to it in a few years due to schedules.

But after only a few minutes after passing through the gate, I ran into Doug Cook of Motion Raceworks. Doug didn’t make it even a minute into the conversation before he told me about ‘Stevie Fast’ Jackson, and his last 24 hours that resulted in a win just by getting to the first round of competition.

After four days of cold temperatures, insane racing action and sizable crowds at South Georgia Motorsports Park, some recognizable names and repeats winners led the storylines at one of the biggest drag radial tire themed races, Lights Out 16.

After two days of qualifying, eliminations got underway on Saturday, February 22nd, and were completed on Sunday, February 23rd, 2025, by crowning winners in thirteen different classes.

As we covered on Thursday’s first qualifying session story, the Radial Versus the World class grabbed headlines when Paolo Guist reset the class record with a 3.479 pass. The other half of that pair, Ken Quartuccio, clocked a 3.49 on that run, but would return on Friday, February 21st, to drop the record further with a 3.743 run.

Quartuccio employed that performance through eliminations, using a pair of 3.4-second runs to score his third final round appearance in as many events.