World Ford Challenge 9 - Nine Was Divine

The talk of the weekend was David Wolfe driving Ken Nelson's '93 LX in Outlaw Drag Radial. Armed with a 382ci engine, a Turbonetics 106mm turbo, and just about everything out of the Wolfe Race Craft catalog, this black LX was responsible for delivering Wolfe to the winner's circle and setting a new world record of 7.40 at 197 mph. While the safety equipment was questioned, the WFC officials let Wolfe off with a warning and told the chassis builder to get the chassis up to the SFI 25.2 spec for next year's competition.

Mike Keenan has always raised the bar in Wild Street, and this year was no different. He ran in the mid-sevens on M/T drag radials with a new twin turbocharged combination.

Brian Carpenter debuted this Skinny Kid Race Car built Mustang two years ago at WFC 7. He was running 29x10.5-inch slicks back then with a 94mm turbo and going mid-7s. This year a set of 33x10.5W tires put him in the Pro Outlaw 10.5W category, and two Precision 88mm turbos placed him on top of qualifying with a 6.90 at 211 mph. Carpenter then mowed through the field of Outlaw racers on Sunday and took the win over Chip Havemann, 6.99 to 7.07.

This is a rare sight to see. John Gullet's crew loaded up their race car on Saturday night prior to eliminations. With 19 cars vying for 16 spots, the Florida crew did not make the cut. Gullet was the favorite to win WFC thanks to his 6.36 performance one month earlier at the Fun Ford Atlanta showdown. Unfortunately, changes had the team struggling on each qualifying run, and Gullet never got the Stang to its full running potential, however the car did look outstanding with its new paint job from Visual F/X.

Frank Gugliotta was one of many IHRA Pro Stock racers who invaded the WFC bash. Gugliotta dropped 50 pounds off of his IHRA P/S weight, and that helped him run 6.37 to qualify number one. He lost to John Nobile in the finals on a holeshot.

No one caused more controversy in the weeks leading up to WFC than Don Burton. The self-proclaimed badass of "small-tire" racing laid down a 7.35 in testing-a new world record on real 10.5-inch tires. At WFC he kept his ride in the mid-7s and won the Edelbrock Street Outlaw class with a 7.50. He beat John Urist in the process who had run 7.54.

A runner-up finish was in order for Chip Havemann, driving the Stang Gear-sponsored Pro Outlaw 10.5 entry. Each round he would toss T-shirts out to the crowd and run in the low 7s. A 7.07 in the finals was not enough to hang with the 6.99 from Brian Carpenter, though. Havemann wasn't messing around, and brought 449 ci of small-block furry to the table. A pair of Precision 88mm turbos provided serious amounts of boost.