NMRA ELIMINATION RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE

Today in St. Louis NMRA and NMCA racers battle in the Testo Showdown where the winners will take home prizes including the beautiful Nitto Diamond Tree Rings. NMRA/NMCA president Steve Wolcott says "Come win my rings!"







Jet Funny Cars QuarterMaster, sporting a Mustang body, and Black Pearl, wearing a Camaro body, are absolutely bringing the heat for the Jet Funny Car Battle at the 18th Annual NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Muscle Car Drag Racing. The drivers of the fast and fiery vehicles made two passes today, and will be back for more on Sunday.





Like his fellow Holley EFI Factory Super Cars racers, Chuck Watson II works very hard, and as a result, he does very well in the category. He came to this event in second-place in points, and with an incredibly impressive team behind him including Kim Mapes, his wife Robyn Watson and the rest of Watson Racing, he ripped off a 7.594 to set the pace in qualifying and to secure the quickest pass ever in Holley EFI Factory Super Cars. He also won the Testo Super Bowl Shootout against the always-tough Jonathan Allegrucci. We join race fans in congratulating Watson II, and seeing where he goes from here. His late father and fellow racer, Chuck Watson Sr., is surely smiling from above.



Danny Towe is very thankful to be blessed with an understanding wife, a great sponsor for his Harland Sharp-backed 1970 Ford Mustang SportsRoof, a fantastic bunch of friends, and now his seventh Nitto Tire Diamond Tree ring. The southern gentleman picked up his third-ever Testo Super Bowl Shootout win today in NMCA Erson Cams Nostalgia Muscle Presented by World Products to pair with his four prior season championships. Running at a competition weight of 3,300-pounds, Towe trusts his stroked-out 393 ci Windsor engine, Powerglide transmission, and 9” rear end with a 4.30:1 gear to keep him running consistent 11.75-second passes which regularly translate into trips to the winner’s circle.



There have been plenty of eye-catching wheelies across the categories at the 18th Annual NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Muscle Car Drag Racing this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway. Cars are launching hard and heading toward the sky as racers get them set up for the first round of eliminations. 




Here are the index class final pairings for the Testo Super Bowl, which will begin around 2:30 p.m. today at the 18th Annual NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Muscle Car Drag Racing at World Wide Technology Raceway. The Nitto Tire Diamond Tree Rings are polished and waiting to be picked up by the winners! Heads-up class final pairings are being finalized now and will be posted soon.

Along with his family, friends, and son Chase, David Purlee is on the property with his 1995 Ford Mustang after nearly two decades off for both car and driver. Under the hood of the SN95 sits a 360 cubic inch engine backed by a clutchless 5-speed manual transmission, the same combination Purlee last ran in Hot Street many moons ago. He revived the entry so that he could attend the upcoming NMRA Ford Homecoming and all its once-in-a-lifetime special events, but decided to first have some fun in NMRA VP Racing Madditives Renegade/NMCA Edelbrock Xtreme Street this weekend so he could start proactively collecting championship points as he has another, more purpose-built Fox body still in the works for the class. The latter, a 1993 model which he purchased new, will be powered by a ProCharger-supercharged 420 ci small block Ford running on alcohol.


Keith Ciborowski, current NMRA VP Racing Madditives Renegade/NMCA Edelbrock Xtreme Street class contender and son of two-time NMRA Limited Street champion Mike Ciborowski, brought his 2014 Ford Mustang out for its first outing in a few months. The Team Kubota family’s last event was the DXP No Mercy race in late 2022, after which they pulled the car’s transmission and stuck the S197 in a corner of their shop. Two weeks ago, they put the trans back in, bolted on Harts Turbo’s latest 76mm Ultra Street-legal snail, and started the car up. So far this weekend, Keith has gone as quick as 4.594 at 156.17 mph during qualifying to put himself fifth in the large, combined NMRA/NMCA category and he’s still got another shot to improve even further this afternoon.


Audrey Baize always has a smile on her face when she is sitting in her 1969 Dart preparing to make a pass alongside one of her fellow Erson Cams Nostalgia Muscle competitors, and her approach is working well for her this weekend. The racer from Hodgenville, Kentucky, recorded an 11.755 on an 11.75 index to qualify in the first spot for the first time, and that also helped her secure a bye-run for this afternoon’s first round of eliminations as well as a race against points leader Danny Towe in this event’s Testo Super Bowl Shootouts. 



Mike DiDomenico and his team work around-the-clock to finesse and fine-tune their car and combination for VP Racing Lubricants Xtreme Pro Mod competition, and they continuously prove that their hard work is worthwhile. That was certainly the case when DiDomenico clocked a 3.68 and 203 mph to qualify in the fourth spot out of ten racers yesterday at the 18th Annual NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Muscle Car Drag Racing at World Wide Technology Raceway. “We’re figuring it out, and we’re concentrating on gear changes, among other things, for even better numbers on the short part of the track,” said DiDomenico, who relies on a Noonan Hemi and PSI screw blower for his 1968 Camaro-bodied car.




NMRA Factory Stock racer Damien Stephens’s 1989 Ford Mustang has been doing wheelie well, er, really well lately. After three sessions of qualifying, Damien had gone as quick as 10.193 at 131.64 mph to sit in the number three spot with one session still left to go. Having gone from 2,590-pounds to 3,025-pounds and finally to the current competition weight of 3,325-pounds, Damien has had to make no changes to the Fox body’s suspension bar angles or anything other than some minor tweaks to keep the front end down and is extremely pleased with the “absolutely phenomenal” performance he’s been enjoying recently, adding that the car is “some type of anomaly with the way it works.” Don’t jinx it, Damien!


Driving his son Aaron Worstell’s old high school ride and former NHRA bracket car, Bill Worstell was having fun in NMRA FSC Ford Muscle up until the 1989 Ford Mustang dropped a valve on Thursday evening in testing. Despite the unfortunate incident, Bill wasn’t too upset – especially considering the abundance of passes he and his son had previously put on the aluminum-headed, standard-bore 351 cubic inch Windsor powerplant over the years – and simply got to work making the necessary repairs without much fuss. Just like his son, Bill’s racing efforts are backed by both Team Z and GS Performance.


Somehow, Canadian sensation Chad Stephens talked his brother, Damien Stephens, into doing the dirty work on his Team Dirty Bird 1987 Ford Thunderbird on Friday morning. Chad made a pass during Thursday’s testing to seat a new clutch in his NMRA Coyote Stock entry, but did so without the assistance of his clutch tamer and spun as a result. For the second pass, he added some tamer back in but the ‘Bird took flight with a huge wheelie and ran out of gear still with 200-feet left to go before the stripe. As a result, Damien got to pull the center section so that the guys could make a pinion change and get back in the game in time for qualifying. Fortunately, the family works well together and Chad ran 9.770 at 137.64 mph which put him ninth in the field going into the fourth and final qualifier.

The schedule for Saturday's day of racing will be as follows: