ND WE’RE BACK – SPRING FLING PRE-RACE

After almost three months in shutdown mode with two of the Spring Fling events postponed, this week will mark the return of Spring Fling racing to GALOT Motorsports park in North Carolina. With the approval of local and state officials along with the GALOT staff, Fling promoters Peter Biondo and Kyle Seipel are excited to get back to racing.

“We had to unfortunately postpone both the Spring Fling Million in Las Vegas and the Spring Fling GALOT which were scheduled for earlier this year,” Seipel said. “The COVID-19 virus placed a burden on us all, but we’re now thrilled to be able to get back to what we enjoy, and that’s bracket racing at its finest.”

Recent bracket races have been loaded with the pent-up frustration of racers and this one is surely to be equally packed. A limited pre-entry field of racers sold out in early February for what was supposed to be a late April event. Now moved to this week in June, that has done little to restrain the excitement of some of the best bracket racers in the country.

First up will be a Test & Tune Tuesday which will also feature the Super Tuesday Dragster Shootout sponsored by American Race Cars and Race Tech. A limited field of only 32 drivers will compete with both the winner and runner-up receiving a new dragster, with the winner choosing his choice of manufacturer first.

FST Wednesday then begins with a $15,000-to-win warm up race for every entrant. JEGS Thursday and Wiseco Saturday are both $25,000-to-win affairs, while Strange Engineering Friday ups the ante to $100,000-to-win. All payouts are 100-percent guaranteed. In addition, over $50,000 in hardcore prizes are up for grabs in both round and random prizes.

“We have taken decisive measures to streamline this event and make it as safe as possible.” said Seipel. “Each entrant has already received their Tech Cards along with the new COVID Waiver which should allow for less contact between everyone.”

Biondo added “Even though this event will have a different feel due to the state of the world today, we are very excited to be able to deliver the excitement and experience that our Fling racers have come to expect.”

MotorManiaTV.com will be on hand to live stream the entire event thanks to JEGS and Hoosier Racing Tires which will be also be on the pages of DRR.

Tuesday the Spring Fling at Galot starts with a 32 car dragster chassis shootout at about 2:30 from Galot Motorsports Park.

K&N SPRING FLING – TUESDAY RESULTS



And so it came to pass, after weeks of social distancing and mask wearing, the fourth edition of the K&N Spring Fling GALOT presented by Optima Batteries opened up to a Test & Tune session today followed by a limited field of racers in the Super Tuesday American Race Cars/Race Tech Dragster Shootout.



“We’re thrilled to get back to providing our customers, who are all our friends, with the experience and excitement our Fling racers have come to expect,” said co-promoter Peter Biondo. As hot as the heat and humidity was today, it almost feels like a Summer Fling but that doesn’t come off the tongue as easily.”



Due to the events of our day and whatever the “new normal” might be, co-promoters Biondo and Kyle Seipel, along with the staff at GALOT Motorsports Park in North Carolina have instituted a number of changes to streamline and make the event as safe as possible for everyone attending.



Thirty-two racers threw down money to be a part of the Super Tuesday Dragster Shootout for the chance at either a new American Race Cars or Race Tech dragster awarded to bot finalists. After two rounds of racing the survivors moving into the quarterfinal round to be paired up on a ladder were Mike “Snap” N ahill, Hunter Patton, Andy Lloyd, Bryson Scruggs, Tony Brewer, Gary Williams, Ken Batchelor and Cory Gulitti.



Moving into the semifinals after the quarters was the last remaining door car of Nahill who will fight against the dragsters of Gulitti, Patton and Scruggs. First up in the semis was Patton against Gulitti. Patton has been on a roll this year with big wins at several events and he showed why. Behind by .003 in reaction time at the starting line, he made it up by running dead on his dial with “1”. Gulitti has also shown his toughness the past coupe of years and also ran dead on his dial but with a “9” to advance Patton. Next up was the sole remaining door of Nahill who had a big advantage on the ‘Tree over Scruggs, advancing the Atco, New Jersey driver to the final.



For the final, neither driver was exactly stellar on the ‘Tree, but both ran dead-on their dial, with Patton taking a tight win light to take home the American Race Cars dragster with Nahill “trucking” home the Race Tech car.

Hunter Patton - Winner

Mike "Snap" Nahill - Runner Up

K&N SPRING FLING – WEDNESDAY RESULTS & SCHEDULE UPDATE



What is really Day 1 of the K&N Spring Fling presented by Optima Batteries opened up this morning, FST Carburetor Wednesday, with $15,000 on the line for a winner tonight.

Yesterday’s Rob’s Automotive Test & Tune session was followed by Hunter Patton and Mike Nahill both taking home a new dragster in the Super Tuesday Dragster Shootout sponsored by American Race Cars and Race Tech. Today was a whole new day with over 350 racers making the call for the first round.

Due to the COVID virus, a number of changes were implemented for this event. Tech cards were e-mailed to all competitors ahead of time in order to further eliminate person to person contact. Buybacks were also handled differently as it simply required a return to the lanes for the buyback round, with the tower round sheets handling the billing to each racer.

Ten hours from when the first round began, the field was paired down to nine cars; Joe Foley, Jason Hoff, Wade White, Lenny Bucher, Jamie Holston, Tommy Cable, Kyle Cultrera, TG Paschal and Mia Tedesco received the odd car bye run in the next round.

Survivors of round seven and those moving into the quarterfinals were Tedesco, Cable, Cultrera and Paschal with Holston earning the bye run in round eight. First up in the round of five was multi-time Fling winner Cable over Tedesco and her door car ending the reign of door cars for the day. Paschal over Cultrera and Holston on the bye.

With three cars left for the semifinal round, Cable will receive the bye to move into his eighth Spring Fling final round making him one of the best ‘Fling racers of all time. Holston and Paschal faced off to see who would face Cable and it would be Holston who is no stranger to footbrake racing but also a very good dragster driver as well.

In the final, it was Cable with the reaction time advantage but taking seven-thousandths finish line but breaking out in the process to hand the trophy and $15,000 to Holston who has two World Footbrake Challenge Gambler’s Race wins to his credit along with a host of other wins as well. That wrapped up FST Carburetor Wednesday with an important schedule change for the balance of the event.

With a forecast for wet weather hanging around for the balance of the week, officials have decided to combine JEGS Thursday and Wiseco Saturday to make it a $50,000-to-win race. Strange Engineering Friday will still be the $100,000-to-win race. “We’re sorry to have to do this,” said co-promoter Kyle Seipel, “but we want to ensure we pay out the entire purse and give our customers the very best Spring Fling experience. We therefore will start the $50K race on Thursday morning.”

MotorManiaTV is continuing to live stream the entire event thanks to Hoosier Tires and JEGS.

Jamie Holston - Wednesday's $15k Warm-Up Winner

Anyone there, that would let me get in Saturday, "as your crew" ??? Id pay for the ticket.

K&N SPRING FLING – THURSDAY RESULTS



With three days left of high-dollar bracket racing at the K&N Spring Fling GALOT presented by Optima Batteries, Mother Nature has been disruptive. With a questionable

forecast for the remaining three days, co-promoters Pete Biondo and Kyle Seipel chose

to make a schedule change.



“Our goal is to always provide an experience for our racers that is second to none,” said co-promoter Pete Biondo. “After careful consideration of the probability of some weather

over the coming days, we have made the decision to combine the JEG’s $25,000 Thursday and the Wiseco Powersports $25,000 Saturday race. All of the prize money,

round money and round prizes will be doubled.



“Racers,” added Biondo, have made the commitment to come race with us, and we

have made the commitment to provide all of the purse and prizes to our races as

advertised. Although we do anticipate some interruptions for weather over the next few

days, we feel confident that we will be able to complete both the combined $50,000

race, and the Strange Engineering $100,000 main event by Saturday night, with the

option to use Sunday if necessary. We have a full staff and the best track drying

equipment available including a Jet Dryer. If or when any weather hits, it will be all

hands on deck.”



As it turned out, sprinkles on and off caused some minor pauses until the skies finally opened up. A five hour delay ensued but the crew of GALOT Motorsports Park were able to get the track surface in top shape with racing resuming.



With 388 cars making the first round, it was decided to complete the second round of racing and then call it a night as the curfew hour neared. Friday’s schedule will ensue with the Spring Fling Reaction Time Challenge followed by the resumption of round three of the JEG’s and Wiseco Powersports $50,000 race. Once a Champion is crowned, the Strange Engineering $100,000-to-win main event will immediately follow.

K&N SPRING FLING – FRIDAY RESULTS



Yesterday’s rain forced officials to double up JEGS Thursday and Wiseco Saturday’s races making it one race for $50,000-to-win. However, that forced only two rounds of eliminations to be completed yesterday with the balance to be finished today. After completion, the Strange Engineering Friday $100,000-to-win race began.

First up though was the Spring Fling Reaction Time Challenge with 25 randomly selected drivers getting one “hit” at the ‘Tree. Any .0XX reaction time earned a $100 bill with a perfect .000 RT getting $1,000. No one was eligible for the $1,000, but six drivers; Carl Drake, Clayton Roberts, Jason Hoff, Colby Fuller, Pete D’Agnolo and Cory Gulitti; all picked up a fresh hundred.

With eliminations continuing down to round seven of the combined race, the survivors were Ernie Humes, Wes Weaver, Marty Dabney, Josh Luedke, Jeff Serra, Mark Siegel, Jeff Taylor, Severn Johnson and Tuesday’s Dragster Shootout winner Hunter Patton. With nine cars left for round seven, Weaver received the bye run to move into the quarterfinals.

Those advancing from that round were Patton, Luedke, Siegel and Taylor along with Weaver. For the quarterfinal round, Luedke took the bye run to move into the quarterfinals, that much closer to a $50,000 payday.

The balance of the quarterfinals and Patton who has been on a winning streak all year turned on the red-light this time to advance Taylor. Weaver and Siegel faced off and Siegel used a 0.004 reaction time to not only defeat the last remaining door car of Weaver but with that RT, he earned the bye run in the semis to automatically move into the final round against either Taylor or Luedke.

Semifinal round, and for the past three rounds, Taylor’s reaction time was bested by 0.001 by his opponents, but he was able to pull through for the win. Not this time. Taylor left with a 0.011 RT but Luedke had a 0.010 and a dead-on the dial with a “9” to advance to the final against Siegel.

It was roughly a month ago when Josh Luedke’s dad, Ron passed away but he surely was looking over his son’s shoulder. A dead-on the dial run and a great reaction time sealed the deal for $50,000 for the man from Boonville, Indiana.

With the $50K race done, and a much better weather forecast, the decision was made to allow every competitor a single time run followed by the first round of eliminations along with the buyback round and then calling it a night. The balance of Strange Engineering $100k-to-win Friday will be completed on Saturday.

The JEGS and Hoosier Tires MotorManiaTV live feed continued today with live top end interviews done in the later rounds.

K&N SPRING FLING – LAST DAY RESULTS

Day Last of the K&N Spring Fling GALOT presented by Optima Batteries was upon us and it was a sort of weird event.

What was originally scheduled as four separate races paying $15K-$25K-$100K-$25K to the winners had to be curtailed when Mother Nature threatened to intervene. As has been reported in earlier race results, the entire purse from the two $25K races were combined and paid $50K to one winner who ended up being Josh Luedke from Boonville, Indiana. Due to heavy storms on Thursday, that race was completed yesterday after which the Strange Engineering Friday $100K race began.

Because of the late start on that race, only one round along with the buyback round was completed last night with the balance of the rounds completed today.

With $100,000 on the line, once again over 380 racers made the first round call and has been the number all week, round seven consisted of nine cars; Leon Robertson, Richard Wilk, Joey Harrison, Dan Fletcher, Hunter Patton, Josh Baker, Parker Dotson, Kyle Cultrera and Troy Williams. In that round with an odd number of cars, Dotson will have the bye run into the quarterfinals.

Round seven survivors were the very red hot this year Patton, perennial high-dollar winner Williams, Harrison in his Mustang, multi-time NHRA champ Fletcher driving his Chevelle wagon and Dotson in his dragster. Three dragsters against two door cars with Patton on the bye in the quarters, followed by door cars against dragsters; Williams against Harrison and Fletcher against Dotson.

Unfortunately, Dotson broke on his bye run and couldn’t make his date with Fletcher. Harrison then red-lighted to advance Williams, and Fletcher took his unearned bye run. In the semis, Williams received the bye into the final, while Patton and Fletcher battled it out.

With the field narrowed down to three cars left, the decision was made to award Hunter Patton the Todd’s Extreme Paint MVP Award, voted on by the Fling staff as the person who was most consistent in turning on win lights all week. The award carries a custom-painted Spring Fling MVP helmet along with a check for $1,000, courtesy of Todd’s Extreme Paint. Going into the semis, Patton showed his talent and still had some work to complete.

Unfortunately for Patton, he ran into “this guy named” Fletcher. A better reaction time by Fletcher was all it took to move the man who has been a little dry on NHRA national event wins for the last year, now moving into his biggest bracket racing final round with $100,000 on the line. But first he had to deal with another big time winner in Troy Williams.

The final for $100,000 and by virtue of the dial-in, Fletcher left first but lit that big red cherry at the bottom of the ‘Tree by -0.003. And the two-time Spring Fling winner; make that now three-time; cruised to another big win.

“I’d guess you could say we were a little concerned on Tuesday when the weather forecast looked so grim,” said co-promoter Kyle Seipel. “We were sorry we had to make the schedule adjustment but it just appeared to be the right decision. And then the weather forecast turned around. But the racers accepted the change and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome. We are so thankful for each and every one of them who had the confidence in us to put on a great event. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!”

All week long the MotorManiaTV crew was on hand live streaming the entire event thanks to JEGS and Hoosier Tires. Next up on the Fling schedule is the Sparco Fall Fling presented by Optima Batteries in Bristol, Tennessee, September 29 to October 3. Both Peter Biondo and Kyle Seipel are still working with the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to reschedule the Spring Fling Million which unfortunately had to be postponed from April. For more info and news, stay connected to www.bracketraces.com.