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 THE CLUB’S DAY AT THE DRAG STRIP WAS APRIL 18TH:
This was an all day event being held at Beaver Springs Dragway and was
open to the public. See the results, pics, and article at the bottom of the page, just click here.
KEYSTONEGARAGECLUB.COM HEADS UP / FLAT OUT (HUFO):
First, let's get a bit into the event description... We decided that
all cars must be street legal. This means the car must display a current state inspection sticker, plate &
insurance, mufflers & D.O.T. tires. Antique tags will get you in without inspection sticker but dealer tags
will not get you in if your car doesn’t have a current inspection sticker. We will also be checking to make sure
your brake lights work.
All racing will be heads up, staged off the tree, but started with a hand drop. No times will be shown on the big
board but time slips for your run will be available during a 2 hour time shot session. This allows you to see what
you run, but everyone else s kept in the dark to simulate real "street racing" more accurately. Before
elimination’s start, you will have to decide what your un-advertised FLAT-OUT ET will be.
All cars will be required to drive to a predetermined location in Middleberg, pick up a soft plug with a number
written in it from a KGC member stationed there, and return to the track. You are allowed 40 minutes for this trip.
You check out when you leave the gate & check back in when you return. At that time, you will also report the
# on your soft plug & what your FLAT OUT ET for the night will be. This should eliminate a strictly "drag
car" from the event and make it more fair to a real "street" car.
After all the cars have reported back in, we will look at all the FLATOUT ETs and break the cars into 4 classes.
Each class will group cars that fall into a particular ET window . We can’t pre-pick the ET windows since we don’t
know what cars we’ll have till that night. Nice thing about breaking the cars up this way is, we don’t care if
you’ve got NOS, Turbo, 4 cyl, stick, or what ever. We don’t care. Tell us what your car runs & we’ll put you
in a class. The classes from slowest to fastest will be called Grocery Getter or “GG”, Major Muscle
or “MM”, Street Freak or “SF”, and finally, Crazy Fast or “CF” .
We will then list the cars & what classes they are in on a big white board at the drivers meeting. The cars
in each class will be matched numerically by number on your soft plug. At this point, we will start eliminating.
No times, or time slips. Winners will receive a custom trophy sculpted from cool old car parts and a boost to their
ego.
Schedule of events:
- Any time during the test & tune, up to 5PM, you can register for
HUFO, no extra charge.
- 4PM < test & tune ends and racing shuts down for 1 hour to give
Bob’s staff a break. During this time, cars can start their cruise to Middleburg to pick up their soft plug
- 5PM. < Racing resumes for one hour of time shots for HUFO. All racing
will be heads up, staged off the tree, but started with a hand drop. No times will be shown on the big board but
time slips for your run will be available.
- 6PM < Time shots end. Cruise to Middleburg is completed. Car registration
info is taken from the gate to the tower and the classes are created & put on the white board.
- 6:30 < Drivers meeting and classes announced.
- 7:00 < Elimination’s begin.
RULES for the race:
- If you jump, you are out.
- If you run more than 2 tenths faster into the next fastest class, you
are out.
- If your brake lights come on before the finish line, you are out.
Winners of each round will re-draw soft plugs for their next match up.
Dead time on the track will be filled with the CUT UP CAR if needed. All day test & tune is $37. This automatically
gets you into the HUFO event (providing you’ve got a street car). Cost to race in HUFO if you show up after 4PM
is $20. Spectators are free. All proceeds go to the track No rain date is available.
Although Beaver Bob will have a full staff, we will still need some volunteers to hold the event. See below:
- TECH PERSON (Time will be throughout the day till 5:30PM)
- checking for street legal & brake lights. This person will have
the driver register for HUFO.
- GATE KEEPER (Time will be 4PM to 6PM.)
- collects registration sheets and records this info:
- Time driver left track.
- Time driver returned.
- number written on their soft plug
- their FLAT OUT ET for the night
- CRUISE STATION person (Time 4PM to 5:50PM)
- to go out to Middleburg and give out soft plugs.
- HAND DROP starter. (5PM till end of event)
If you are interested in any of these positions, please contact Dave
Lehr before the event. This is going to be a fun day for everyone. It’s to be one of those days, you’ll remember
for the rest of your life. Don’t miss Club Day At the track.Dave, Lehr attached pictures of the 4 trophys that
Chaz Pinkerton just built for the Hufo event, next weekend. Chaz did a killer job building very uniqe trophys.
Bob Zubrickie is engraving plaques for the bases. Hope I win one for my garage!
 The H.U.F.O. event started out as planned with a "test and tune session"
and the "Project S.C.R.A.P."
cut up car. You can see dragsters and all out drag cars in the extra photos, but these are from the test and tune.
The H.U.F.O. event was for the true street cars and started at 4 PM.
 As planned, 4 PM was the start of the sign up and tech for the street cars
planning to try out the new event. Bill Schoffstall was working the sign ups and tech inspections untill approximately
5:30. About 4:30, most cars that were participating were signed up and ready to head out on the cruise route for
street validation. Matt Doyle led the pack on a preplanned back roads loop that went approximately 20 miles into
Middleburg and back. Chris Ives was already waiting with the soft plug bag at our predetermined spot in his black
"GC Parts Hauler" HHR and couldn't be missed along the route.
 After checking in with Amy Reichert, Kayla Jones, and Matt Moyer who were
taking care of the gate, I went on the route in reverse. I hoped to get some film by catching the cars coming the
opposite direction. By doing this, I missed out on the one mistake we made in planning the event. The maps I made
up had an incorrect street nameat the first turn. Th right onto "Creek road" was listed as "Back
mountain rd" which was supposed to turn into creek rd. Here, what I came to realize was the back mountain
rd ended at that particular intersection and should have been listed as creek road. I sincerely appologize to anyone
who went a couple miles out of your way. We'll get it right the next time.
 Back to the race... Matt Murphy's insistance on a street cruise to eliminate
pure race cars actually did have an effect on the results. A very stout twin turbo Camaro showed for the event.
After laying down a blazing pass at the test and tune event, this car headed out on the verification cruise to
compete. This car would have obliterated everyone else (except Don Young's Cobra if he could have run) who entered
and actually made it through the cruise. It was a true street car by all means, but upon his return to Beaver Springs,
his twin fuel supply pumps shut down and he couldn't race the event. We do wish he could have made the event however
and look forward to his participation in our next try at it. We just hope to pull out some more of the extreme
street cars to give his a run!
 Another fast club street car had an issue before the event. Our leading horsepower
supplier for the Dyno "Club Challenge", Don "Ducky" Young laid down a blistering 9.06 second
pass looking for his first 8 second pass. The car developed a miss and a quick check of the plug revealed missing
electrodes and center insulators. Further inspection revealed some internal engine damage. Ducky appologized for
having to drop out of the competition, but we reassured him all was cool. He has his own issues to worry about
rather than our entertainment.
 Well, we finally got down to sorting the classes. It worked out rather well
as the splits were pretty even and all competitors were in a range to have a shot in each class. The total car
count was 17 racers. The classes were announced at the drivier's meeting and after a quick final demo pass by the
Project S.C.R.A.P. agains Chris Ives' GC Parts Hauler HHR, we were ready to get going.
First round of eliminations were started at 6:00 by Dave Lehr until Mel Reichert returned from the race against
Chris. We saw six entries in the "Grocery Getter" Class which turned out to be 14.2 and slower cars.
The "Major Muscle" class from 13.20 to 14.19 had only three entries. The "Street Freak" class
had four cars from 12.20 to 13.19. The "Crazy Fast" cars ran from 12.19 and faster. This class had four
cars. Each class paired off according to the soft plug numbers everyone drew. If you lost the race, you turned
in the soft plug and you were out. Winners advanced to the next round and were staged against the next winning
soft plug in your class.
 The racing was actually pretty close for every round. The classes were seperated
well and no one seemed to be at a large disadvantage. Want to know how fast everyone went and who beat who? You'll
have to watch the video. Our winners included Ronny Suhr's '93 Mustang LX in "Grocery Getter" with a
best pass of 14.6 @ 92.79 MPH. "Major Muscle" was won by Glen Sweinhart in his '62 Vette making a best
pass of 13.4 @ 106 MPH. "Street Freak" was won by Mitch Minnich in his 2000 Mustang with a best pass
of 12.5 @ 114 MPH. The over all winner and "Crazy Fast" trophy winner was Jesse Abdo in his Gasser style
'62 Chevy II with a best run of 11.3 @ 120 MPH.
With the small turnout for participation we were done and ready to head home by 7:30 after a nice BS session. All
said they had a good time and liked the format. If we promote it a little better to get the word out, maybe we
can hold this event again. A special Thanks goes out to Beaver Bob and everyone at Beaver Springs Dragway for letting
us try out a new event.
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