[1]
It’s been a long, hard road over the last couple of seasons for New Yorker Paul Major and his 2001 Outlaw Drag Radial Corvette. The class trendsetter has experienced crashes, a fire when an injector o-ring let loose, and more, but that’s all in the past, as he drove through one of the toughest Outlaw Drag Radial fields ever assembled this past weekend at the Yellowbullet [2] Nationals at Cecil County Dragway [3] in Maryland.
Major qualified second in the field with a strong 4.449 effort at 183 MPH, then proceeded to drive through the competition on Sunday with a vengeance, eliminating John Ianuzzi in round one (with a 4.54, low ET of the round), Sean Ashe in round two, and an incredible 4.36 at 188 MPH over Phil Hines in the third round.
[4]The final was set up with the man, “Big Daddy” Dwayne Gutridge, who had made his way there by winning over Mark Micke in the semifinal round with a stout 4.40. Big Daddy got the holeshot, but from there Major’s Corvette simply tore through the finish line with yet another awesome 4.36 bracket-like pass at nearly 185 MPH to send Major to the winner’s circle to collect the big check.
Major was quick to credit the team at DMC Racing [5], including chassis tuner and fabricator Dennis MacPherson along with tuner Eric LaFerriere for getting him there. In addition, Joe Newsham and Ed Harper from J&E Automotive [6] in New Jersey get credit for repairing his race-winning engine in a super-short week after Major dropped a valve testing the Friday before the race at Maryland International Raceway [7].
Major feels that the combination hasn’t even shown its potential yet, and with the performances he showed this past weekend the rest of the competition has been put on notice.
Check out this awesome video from TheRacingVids [8] of Paul’s weekend!