The Power Automedia offices gained a new piece centerpiece this morning, after Dragzine’s Project BlownZ won for the first time in 2014 and for a second time in the last four NMCA WEST events at the Auto Club Dragway in Fontana, California, adding a second NHRA ‘Wally’ trophy to the case.

Marking the third time as the charm, the Fontana event was the third outing on BlownZ this season since a complete rebuild right down to the chassis and Camaro shell over the winter, and the victory certainly came with its challenges, not the least of which was the red-hot racing surface that had everyone struggling to get a handle on the tune-up.

The conditions in Fontana threw the field of Street Outlaw competitors for a loop in the opening session of qualifying on Friday afternoon, with Kevin Young’s 8.26 leading the field and James Lawrence in BlownZ sitting second at a well off-pace 8.57 at 189.28 MPH. But our team did its homework overnight, and when the second session rolled around on Saturday, BlownZ lit up the boards with a 7.359 at 198.09 MPH — a run that would hold up as the quickest in the category and place us atop the ladder going into eliminations. Although 198 MPH sounds impressive, in reality the driveshaft data showed a 187.4 MPH run — a time slip error that would continue through the weekend. Our best guess was that the nose of the car was dropping during the application of the parachute, leading the beams to be tripped by the nose of the car and causing an errant increase in speed.

On Sunday, our first round opponent, Rodney Bohanon, broke and was unable to make the call, giving us a shot to see what the track would hold as we moved into the semifinals. Our 7.63 at a slowing 176.70 MPH ended up low elapsed time for the round, giving us lane choice a little later in the afternoon. 

In that semifinal matchup, we were paired with Chico Coleman, who has qualified fourth with his ’81 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Coleman got us out of the gate, but BlownZ charged to a 7.46 at 189.34 MPH to advance on to the final round, where Ryan “Toaster” Jones, one of the heaviest hitters not just on the west coast, but in the nation, awaited.

No question we had our work cut out for us with Jones in the other lane, and when the tree flashed green, Lawrence experienced an issue with the engine hesitating on the transbrake, resulting in a late light (.338) so it was going to take a lot of grunt to run him down. Fortunately, there was just enough in the tank of our ProCharger F1X-12 equipped, 400-inch LSX bullet to catch Jones, who had to pedal once due to tire spin, with a 7.39 at a registered 206.76 MPH (which we later determined via our Racepak data was more in the 196.5 range) to take the win light.

There are more folks than we could possibly thank here for helping us get to where we are with BlownZ, and with some more sweaty equity, we hope to add another trophy or two to the office before the season is out. Our team is currently sitting atop the Street Outlaw points based on the following unofficial NMCA West points layout in Street Outlaw.