Local Racers Lead Way at ADRL Hardee’s Georgia Drags

VALDOSTA, GA (May 10, 2008) — Georgia’s own Mike Hill and Coodee Thomas rewarded the huge partisan crowd at South Georgia Motorsports Park (SGMP) with wins in Extreme 10.5 and Pro Extreme Motorcycle, respectively, May 10, at the 4th annual Hardee’s Georgia Drags staged by the Flowmaster American Drag Racing League (ADRL) presented by the National Guard. Joining them in victory lane were Pro Extreme star Joshua Hernandez and new Pro Nitrous record holder Billy Harper.

Hernandez qualified his National Guard-backed ’57 Chevy seventh and raced past fellow Texans Gaylen Smith and Frankie Taylor before taking out John Stanley in the semis to reach Quain Stott and his ’63 Corvette in the Pro Extreme final. Hernandez was on his game, taking a .026 advantage off the starting line and blasting to a 3.82-seconds pass at 195.87 mph over the SGMP eighth mile that also set low elapsed time (E.T.) for the weekend and gave Hernandez his second-straight ADRL national event win. Meanwhile, Stott suffered traction trouble and was forced to shut off early after reaching the final from the 16th and final qualifying position.

“I owed Quain that one,” Hernandez said, referring to a final-round loss to Stott at the same track two years ago. “We were ready for him. I knew it was going to run a good number because once Jimmy (Oddy, crew chief) and the boys found the right tune-up for the hot track they weren’t going to let go.”

Harper, a former Kentucky gubernatorial candidate, had his first qualifying attempt disallowed after the undercarriage of his 2001 Viper adversely affected the track’s timing equipment, but he put together an excellent 3.95-seconds pass to secure the top spot and unofficially set a new class E.T. record in the third and last session. In the second round against teammate Dennis Radford, Harper had another disallowed E.T. due to timing issues, but was permitted to continue and lowered the mark to 3.94 seconds in the semis against Randy Weatherford. That run eventually served as the back-up within the required one percent for an official record after Harper set the new standard to 3.93 at 186.67 mph with his win over 2005 ADRL Pro Nitrous world champion Dan Parker in the final.

“We faced some adversity this weekend, but our team led by Dennis Radford’s tune-up did a great job,” Harper said of his career-first ADRL win. “Hopefully, we’ll be doing this again soon.”

Washington, Georgia’s Hill was the only number-one qualifier who also managed to pull off the race win. After relatively easy wins over Elliott Thompson and reigning class champ Steve Gorman, Hill needed a better reaction time to overcome the E.T. advantage of Michelle Wilson in the semi-finals. That set up a titanic clash for the final against long-time rival Steve Kirk Jr., who earlier established a new class E.T. record of 4.26 seconds in his debut with a new ’63 Corvette.

Unfortunately, it was over at the starting line as Kirk’s engine suffered problems with its nitrous system while Hill streaked to the win in 4.28 seconds at 173.61 mph.

“This feels really good. We were breaking little things on the car just about every run, so we really had to work hard for it,” Hill said. “This was not an easy win, that’s for sure, but I think that makes it that much better.”

Thomas, from Ellenwood , Georgia , said he was “thrilled” and “relieved” to finally break into the win column after two previous final-round appearances. After qualifying his 2003 Hyabusa fourth he went through Ron Clark, T.T. Jones and number-one qualifier Billy Vose to meet Matt Prophit in his first ADRL final-round appearance. Thomas left first and led all the way to the finish line, posting a 4.31-seconds effort at 167.74 mph.

“It took us a little while to get our chassis and wheelie bar set-up figured out to where it would go straight, but once we got that it went pretty smooth,” Thomas said of his march to the win. “Hard work is what got it done for us.”

The ADRL returns to action June 6-7, with its 4th annual Pizza Hut Summer Drags at Knoll Gas Motorsports Park at U.S. 131 in Martin , Michigan .

Photo Credits: Courtesy of ADRL/Ian Tocher