This past weekend, I changed my original plan to attend the WoO finals and instead went to the North-South modified and East-West supermodified shootout. It had been quite a few years since I had seen the supers and my buddy had never seen them so off to Concord NC we went.
I know that a lot of the IOW members have seen these guys run and I'm sure they'll back me up when I tell you they FLY! For their first hotlap session we stood inside the pitwall coming out of the dogleg and the first time they came by at speed my friend jumped back about ten feet. Later he made the comment that those guys "must tape their eyelids open because there's no way they have time to blink."
I was really surprised and pleased that the car count was 38. Besides the guys from Oswego, there were some from NE and OH, plus a bunch from the West. We ended up spending a good bit of time with the 48 crew of Dale Lamborn from Carson City, Nevada. A nicer bunch of guys you won't find anywhere.
I was really afraid the feature was going to be a recipe for disaster: 32 rockets on a half-mile tri-oval, many of the drivers had never raced with each other or at that track, and the inversion had a number of the fastest cars scattered throughout the field. Even though there were some incidents, I think they all did a remarkable job. The race was won by AJ Russell, a young and very talented driver from CA., who started mid-pack. I was pulling for my new friend, Dale Lamborn, who finished 6th after starting 11th.
If you have never seen the supers race, check them out sometime, I bet you'll be impressed.
One other thing; if you're interested in creative race car engineering, you'll love the supers. I don't believe there were any two cars identical.