Bryant Goldstone Claims Peak Street Car Shootout Victory at Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway
The NHRA national event circuit returned to Joliet, Illinois and Route 66 Raceway this past weekend for the first time since 2019, after the track was closed from 2020 through 2022.
The Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK Performance would play host to the NHRA professional and sportsman classes, but also include the inaugural PEAK Street Car Shootout.
The eight-car field was packed with quick small tire and big tire vehicles, including Tom Bailey, Alex Taylor, Steve Morris and Bryant Goldstone with the wide rear tires.
The smaller radial flyers included Clark Rosenstengel, Clint Sodowsky, Rick Trunkett and Bob Hess Jr. rounding out the eight-car field.
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The experience for some of the group started on Thursday with cruising Joliet streets, and stopping at the Joliet Correctional Center, featured in the popular movie The Blues Brothers, as well as visiting renowned car builder Troy Trepanier’s Rad Rides by Troy Inc shop.
Once back at the track, the group was hoping to get a time shot before eliminations would begin Friday evening, but rain and race delays would mean the eight drivers would go “off the trailer” straight into eliminations with no test runs.
Elimination rounds would be contested in a shootout-style format, with a total of three rounds available to every competitor over Friday and Saturday action. A random chip draw is used to determine the pairings in every round, and the two drivers with the most round wins would move to the final round on Sunday to determine the class winner.
As Friday evening was quickly approaching, the competitors rolled to the staging lanes for round one of eliminations. Bailey and Goldstone started off the festivities, and Bailey got the win with a coasting 7.84 at 87 mph over Goldstone’s 8.60 run.
Taylor and Rosenstengel comprised pair number two, and Alex clocked low e.t. of round one with a 7.11 at 166 mph in defeat of Rosenstengel’s troubled 12-second pass.
Sodowsky dismissed Trunkett with a 7.72 at 183 mph lap in pair three, and the final duo had Hess getting the better of Morris with a 7.76 at 173 mph.
Saturday would showcase rounds two and three in the Shootout, and after another chip draw to match up the racers, seven of the eight competitors were back in the lanes for round two in the early afternoon hours.
Alex Taylor secured low et plus top speed of the round with a 7.008 at a blistering 212 mph, marking her second 212 mph of her career, in defeating a game 7.75 at 174 of Hess.
Trunkett, after having problems in Friday’s first round, got the win over the 7.84 at 190 mph of Rosenstengel with a personal-best 7.66 at 170.67 mph that also marked Trunkett’s first four-second eighth-mile time, a 4.96 at 147 mph.
Bailey coasted to a 9.13 at only 104 mph to secure the win over a 12-second pass from Sodowsky, and Goldstone got a single over the missing Morris with a 7.18 at 196 mph.
Late Saturday afternoon, round three was on deck. To this point, Taylor and Bailey both had two wins, putting them in the favored position to earn a final round berth.
Good friends and B3Racing teammates Trunkett and Hess would start round three, with Hess using his third 7.7-second pass, this one a 7.74 at 175 mph, to dispatch Trunkett’s traction-limited 12.88 run.
Goldstone and Bailey would stage up next in a rematch of their first-round match-up, and this time Goldstone turned the tables with a 6.62 at 212.53 mph, the best et and speed for the class, to hand Bailey’s 10.17 run his first loss.
Taylor got the opponent-broke single of round three, and her ’55 Chevy stopped the clocks at 7.16 at 203 mph, giving her a perfect 3-0 round record.
The final pair of round three had Rosenstengel defeating Sodowsky via a 7.79 at 152 mph over an 8.63 at a closing 176 mph.
Bailey, Goldstone and Hess completed regular competition with two wins each. The tiebreaker would be the quickest average e,t,, and Goldstone would get the chance to face Taylor for the PEAK Street Car Shootout title.
As the two drivers left the starting line in the title round, both sides experienced problems. Taylor had her engine shut off, similar to what she had experienced during Sick Week, while Goldstone shook the tires and broke a switch, causing the twin-turbocharged AMC to also shut off.
It became a coasting race to see who finished first, and Goldstone crossed that magic mark in front of Taylor, earning him the NHRA trophy and a winner’s circle berth.
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Chuck Stefanski, Sick the Magazine and EJ Naegeli.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com
