Sick Week Competitors Flint and McClain Earn Class Victories at 352 Shootout at Gainesville Raceway
As it has become the norm during Halloween weekend for the last three years, the 352 Shootout was held this past weekend at Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Florida.
Moving to a 2-day Friday-Saturday format, the event hosted 12 different classes of racing action, including several street-style classes, which attracted several Sick Week competitors from the Florida and Georgia area, including Kevin Smith, Matt Lamphier, Jaeson Hager, Guy Protano, Rick Prospero and Brian Carney.
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One of the biggest winner’s circle celebrations belonged to McClain Motorsports, who had five cars representing their shop at the event, and three of those five cars earned final round slots.
The Real Street class would be an all-McClain Motorsports final round affair, with Dial-Your-Own runner Brian Slow staging up his Mercury 4-door in an all-turbocharged coyote-swap Ford battle against John Raulerson’s Ford Mustang.
At the green, Raulerson would get the better reaction time, and although Slow got to the finish line first, his 9.12 break out pass was further under the 10.00 index than Raulerson’s 9.45, giving the Mustang driver the win in his second Real Street final in three years.
Adding a second victory to the McClain Motorsport tally was Sick Street Race 275 competitor Houston McClain, who scored the win in the 8.50-indexed Limited Street category.
The turbocharged 2014 Mustang comprised one-half of an all-Ford final round against fellow-Blue Oval racer Shelby Mather in a nitrous-infused 1971 Maverick, and McClain led from start to finish to collect the win, and comprise a big winner’s circle celebration.
Another drag-and-drive champion that came out victorious at the 352 Shootout was Richard Flint. After making some changes to his LS-swapped Honda S2000 from its 2022 Sick Week Street Race 8.50-limited set-up, Flint was able to fully exercise the turbocharged LS-swap for a 7.66 average at Sick Week this year for a top five finish in the Super Street class.
Flint would roll to the final round at the 352 Shootout against the clean Dart of Eric Funk, and what could’ve been an all 7-second final round found Funk slowing to a 9.76, while Flint clocked a 7.31 at 193 mph to collect the win.
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of KWS Images and An Image In Time Photography.
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