Based on the success of last year’s Edelbrock Sick 66 ‘one-off’ event, we figured if one was good, two must be better! The second 'one-off' event, Sick Smokies, has sold out on competitor spots today, and we’re here to tell you about your options going forward!!
The 2024 edition of Sick Week wasn’t the first drag and drive event Jacob Davis has participated in, but it would mark the first showing for a 1972 AMC Javelin, a previous race-only ride that he converted for Sick Week. Now, a year later, he’s preparing for a Sick At The Rock appearance.
After all the work to convert it to street legal and test it out, Jacob found that the car would give him some fits during last year’s Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive, but Jacob persevered and finished the event with an 11.06 average, bolstered by a best pass of 10.80 at 124.97 mph on day three.
“I’m really excited to see Sick The Mag stepping up to save some of these races and adding their own flare to it with a fun, weekend style drag and drive,” Jacob said. “It requires a lot less commitment of your time and investment of resources to enter a shorter event like this, and I’m actually doing it for my ‘bachelor party’ with some of my groomsmen.”
Some cars will come and go, but the ones that make for some of the best stories are the ones that have history with their owners. Colin Nowak has owned this 1995 Ford Mustang since high school, and after a dozen years cruising and racing it, he’s ready to roll into Rockingham Dragway for next month’s Sick At The Rock and tackle the Sick Street Car Challenge class.
If this supercharged Mustang looks familiar, it’s because Colin made a presence at the 2024 edition of Sick Summer Presented by Motion Raceworks, finishing second in the Modified class with a 9.18 average.
“Car did great,” said Colin. “We didn't have to mess with anything other than swapping tires, shock settings and fuel. Was pretty wild to see after day one I was in third.” He eventually moved to second on day three, where he would stay until the event was completed.
Now, he’s prepping for Sick Summer, Sick Smokies, and Sick At The Rock in 2025.
The announcement of Cleetus McFarland purchasing half ownership in Bradenton Motorsports Park recently didn’t come as a shock to many, as Cleetus currently owns the Freedom Factory circle track right next door in southwest Florida.
Cleetus is known for some radical ideas, but when he got together to discuss ideas with track co-owner and friend Victor Alvarez, they came up with a simple concept involving street cars and a top ten list.
“We’re doing this top ten list because I realized our cars are getting really fast,” said Cleetus. “Although it is fun to make a killer fast pass, it’s one of the most stressful forms of racing you can do. Everything has to go right.”
So, a plan was put together to get back to basics: using a test and tune night at Bradenton Motorsports Park instead of a big race, real street cars that needed to be driven in the gate, and creating a top ten list.
“I wanted to do something to make test and tunes more fun again for myself and my buddies,” Cleetus said. The initial race would be a 16-vehicle roster, and races would be paired by random chip draw each round, and a four-tenths pro tree start would be used, with no transbrakes allowed. A floating break out to keep a reasonable gauge on attainable performance would be used (meaning cars can’t run quicker than the accepted limit).
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.
Nearly two decades ago, Donald ‘Duck’ Long noticed that one of the biggest groups of heads-up racing, Outlaw Drag Radial, wasn’t being given the amount of attention he felt they deserved. So, he did something about it, and sixteen years after the ‘Lights Out’ event debuted at South Georgia Motorsports Park, it remains a destination race for racers and fans where the wild and unpredictable happens, as well as many a record are set.
Paolo Guist would be the lone car to dip into the 3.4-second range in the top tier Radial Versus The World (RVW) class during the first session, clocking a 3.498 at 213.60 MPH blast for the top qualifying spot. The impressive run was just twelve thousandths of-a-second off the world record of 3.486 at 213.83 MPH from ‘Stevie Fast’ Jackson, set last March at Alabama International Dragway. But Guist wasn’t done yet.
With the sun all but gone and track temperatures dropping quickly, the entire list of heads-up classes had completed their first session of qualifying. But the decision was made for one more round of RVW qualifying. Guist would be in the first pair of cars out of the staging lanes, lining up alongside a former Lights Out event winner, Ken Quartuccio.
The scoreboards would show history less than three and-a-half seconds later, and for more than one reason!
