Hairston Motorsports & Racing Qualifies #1 In Las Vegas & Goes to The Finals
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (June 18-19, 2010) – The Hairston Motorsports & Racing team attended the Pacific Street Car Association (PSCA) California Nationals, in Las Vegas this past weekend. Clint “The Milkman” Hairston of Bakersfield qualified #1 with a 6.18 @ 238 mph, achieving both top speed and low E.T. of the day.
Clint and the Jerry Bickel built 2007 GTO made it to the final round on Saturday against Randy Walker’s 1974 Chevrolet El Camino, the reigning 2009 PSCA Pro Street Champion. The final race ended in controversy. During engine maintenance between rounds, the Walker team was unable to replace damaged oil rings on the driver’s side of the motor. In the staging lanes, Walker’s crew warned us that the engine would probably smoke until the nitrous system was activated but they didn’t think it would be problem. Unfortunately the engine smoke was much worse than expected and in HMR’s opinion may have affected the timing system allowing the Walker car to leave the starting line early without red lighting.
An official statement from the PSCA states “Representatives from Hairston Motorsports along with Track Manager Chris Blair, Nate Hirshi and PSCA President Mel Roth reviewed the LVMS video replays and could not find conclusive evidence that Walker’s car left the starting line before the tree went green.. There was questions raised that Walker left too early but the smoke prevented the red light to activate…” What was not mentioned is that because the smoke was so thick several of the camera views were obstructed. When asked about looking at any other video evidence, Chris Blair said that only official track video could be accepted.
Walker’s time slip numbers were not realistic showing a 5.886 ET, .468 60’, 2.301 330’ and 3.698 1/8 further indicating a timing system malfunction. Mel Roth, PSCA President and Race Director, also agreed the time slip was not valid and decided to disallow the numbers but awarded the win to Walker. Although we agree that the Race Director does have the final word when there is controversy, Mel’s decision is not consistent with the National Hot Rod Association’s race day competition guidelines. There is much precedent in this area both at NHRA National and Divisional events. Had this same situation occurred at an NHRA event the run would have been disallowed because of the invalid time slip. Further, if NHRA officials determined that the timing system failure was caused by one of the competitor’s cars, the offending competitor would have been disqualified regardless of the win light results. If no fault could be found with the car then a rerun would have been required.
HRM wants to make it clear that in know way do we feel that Walker Racing did anything wrong. Although their car was smoking badly literally obstructing our driver’s view of the track, the LVMS starter found no reason to shut their car off and motioned for both cars to stage. Again it is HRM’s opinion that the smoke created an unacceptable safety situation because of limited starting line visibility. Video of the run can be found on our website www.hairstonmotorsports.com showing visibility in our lane.
HRM thought it important to share our position on this incident with our sponsors, fans, interested racing media; LVMS track personnel and management and PSCA officials. We have the utmost respect for the LVMS race track officials and PSCA officials and although we disagreed with the outcome, our team will move on to the next race with no hard feelings only disappointment.
Hairston set the event low E.T and high MPH on Saturday, 6.12 @ 240 MPH, and still holds the Pacific Street Car Association Pro Street National E.T. and MPH record that was set at California Nationals, in Fontana on May 23, 2010. (6.084 @ 238.30 mph)
Hairston Motorsports & Racing would like to give special thanks to Lucas Oil for being our title sponsor this year and also thank our many other loyal sponsors; Pertronix, Duttweiler Performance, PrecisionTurbo, XS Power, Powermaster, Racepak, Hoosier Tire, K&N, Crower Clutches, Lenco, Comp Cams, Hogan Manifolds, Jesel, Strange, Motive Gear, SCE Gaskets, Starside Design, Specialty Fasteners, Russell, Brodix and ARP for their continuing support. Special thanks go out again to Doug Stewart, Bill Hickok and Tom Esbri for their amazing support for this team.
The Hairston team’s next event will take place at the Pacific Street Car Association California Nationals in Fontana, CA on September 10-12, 2010.