This past weekend (June 24 & 25, '06) saw the launch of Outlaw Top Comp at Eagle Motorplex! The class features cars running a minimum of 9.50 second ET's and uses "Pro 4" tree.

Saturday's final round saw Zak Clarke paired up with fellow "Team Surrey In A Hurry" member Ken "Mo" Orser. With both drivers dialing identical 9.50 ET's, this matchup turned into a full-on, no BS, heads-up drag race! Zak got away first with an .011 reaction to Orser's sleepy .050 leave. In the end, the Vega's 9.53 ET was good enough as the roadster's too-quick 9.47 sealed the win. Congratulations to Zak Clarke for claiming the first ever Outlaw Top Comp title!

Sunday's OTC final round was a little like deja-vu all over again. Zak, Sunday's #1 qualifier, lined up beside Orser for a chance to make it two for two. Later claiming he "gave the race to the old guy," Clarke's -.057 premature leave let Orser's .026 do the trick. In the heat of the day (track surface temp: 140 degrees!) both ET's fell off with Mo's 9.58 good enough to best the Vega's just-not-important-anymore 9.57 second charge. Congratulations go out to Ken Orser for picking up the win in only the second Outlaw Top Comp eliminator at Eagle Motorplex.

On a scary note, in Sunday's first round of OTC qualifying, Doug Rooker's Vega took a turn for the worse. After getting a little liquid under the slicks (Fuel? Coolant?) the flamed beauty made a hard charge into the tower lane. With some great driving, Rooker managed to get the car stopped — rubber side down — but facing back toward the tower. The whole thing was over less than a 100 feet from the tree. Unfortunately the track wall was about a foot and a half too close to where it needed to be and the little Vega got bashed up. With some shattered fiberglass and bruised pride, there didn't appear to be too much, if any, structural damage to either Doug or the car. Hopefully a little elbow grease will get them back out ASAP. As for his shorts? I'd guess they're suffering a bit of pucker-induced damage themselves…

Congrats to Surrey In A Hurry's own Al Quigley for his win in Super Pro at Aschroft this past Sunday, June 25th. Sunday's runner up Jim "Steak" Behnke was the top dog in Saturdays Super Pro final round match-up against Jason Gibson.

Here are some crappy-quality videos from the starting line. Click the images to link to the movies…

Quigley bringing his work to the track… moving rocks from one place to another!

#1 G.I. launching straight as an arrow… finally!

Zak Vega bouncing around a bit on a hard launch.

Justin Gibson burns out in his Jr Digger.

Justin Gibson makes a pass in his Jr Digger.

There's a joke here somewhere… maybe something about Zak being taken from behind?

We're pretty sure this guy had a death wish, and there's a really good chance I saved his life… Every time I didn't video a run, he nearly flipped off the back of the ATV and / or tagged the wall.
Of course, whenever I captured the chaos for posterity, the run was mellow. This vid is the least lame of the half a dozen or so I took, but it's nowhere near as crazy as any of the un-filmed passes!

If you don't already have it, you'll need Apple's free Quicktime player to view these videos.