West Coast Outlaw’s 2013 Recap

Text & Photo by Stephen Bunker

The West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association’s 2013 season shaping up nicely after the first three of eleven scheduled events, each of the three events producing different event winners making the early points chase close.

The WCOPMA season kicked off in Las Vegas, Nevada at “The Strip – Las Vegas Motor Speedway” on February 8-10. The big news prior to the event was west coast heavy hitter Mike Maggio was going to be debuting a new car, significantly lighter than his old car. The new car blues weren’t apparent as Maggio ripped off a 5.85/250 first round qualifying pass and improved to a 5.76/250 final qualifying pass to land atop the qualifying order. Sitting second was Scott Oksas and the Oksas Motorsports 2009 twin turbo Mustang with a 6.04 at a blistering 259 miles per hour! Dan Myers driving the Don Carter Motorsports 1967 Camaro was third, Dan Nickelson fourth, Perry Thyr and Greg Seth-Hunter rounded out the field in the fifth and sixth spots. Maggio marched through the field to find a spot in the final to pair up against Myers driving for Carter. In the final round Myers left the line a little too early handing the easy win to Maggio as he shook and coasted down for the easy win at the first event of the season.

The next stop for the Outlaw’s was at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California on March 2-3. Many teams were excited to run at this event due to the near perfect atmospheric conditions the track produces in the early months of the year. More teams were ready and we had ten cars show up for the 8-car qualified field.

After the first qualifying session it was once again the Maggio Motorsports team on top with a 5.81/257 pass. In the second qualifying session long time Nitro Coupe/Pro Mod racer Dan Nickelson laid down a pass heard around the world with the quickest ever quarter mile doorslammer run, a 5.706 which he later backed up with a 5.735 in the first round of eliminations. Marc Meadors and the Goodguys Racing 1969 “Pure Hell 2 “ Camaro finished qualifying in the number three spot with a 5.826 followed by Scott Bailey with in fourth with a 6.065. Jeremy Hanger, Monty Berney, Jeff Gillette and Lee Smith rounded out the rest of the 8-car qualified field. It would be the top four qualifiers advancing to the second round which was to date, some of the best racing the WCOPMA has seen in its 6 year history.

The first pair out in the semi finals would be the 2-3 matchup of Maggio and Meadors. Both teams were running strong and consistent all weekend and a good race was sure to happen. Maggio had a slight advantage off the line but the Pure Hell Camaro wasn’t far behind, down the quarter mile it was neck and neck and when the score boards lit up it was Meadors grabbing the round win in the quickest ever quarter mile side-by-side drag race to date, Meadors 5.759 edged out a close 5.778 by Maggio. Only .0136 MOV at the stripe, just under 5 feet. In the other pairing it was Nickelson grabbing the win over Bailey with a 5.89 to Bailey’s game 5.93, all four semi-finalist in the 5-second zone.

The final round was looking to be a great drag race but as the saying goes, you can’t race on paper. Meadors had lane choice but it didn’t matter after a faulty transbrake button made him leave before the tree was activated handing the easy win to Nickelson who had problems of his own and coasted to a 6.91 at only 133 mph to be the second event winner of the season.

The third and most recent event on the 2013 schedule brought the WCOPMA back to Sacramento Raceway for and eighth mile event. Although car count was on the low side there was still some exciting action and most of the cars that came used it mainly as a test session. Rod Burbage made the racing debut of his brand new Bunker Race Cars built 1969 Camaro and Rich Roberts was out for the first time with his 1937 Chevy after a bad top end crash in Bakersfield in October 2012. Long time Pro Street/Pro Mod racer Monty Berney led qualifying in his awesome looking 1955 Chevy named “Bertha III”. Following him was the new WCOPMA point’s leader Dan Nickelson in his record setting Viper, Burbage landed third and Roberts rounded out the ladder in the fourth and final spot.

Roberts got the first round win over Berney when the quill shaft on Bertha broke leaving the line and Burbage also advanced to the final with a tire shaking pass when Nickelson went red off the line. In the final round it were the 3 and 4 qualifiers set to do battle, Burbage and Roberts both figuring out new cars. Roberts ran low ET of the event in the final round with a 4.15/179 pass but Burbage got 2-tenths off the line and held off for the holeshot victory with a peddling 4.24/146.

The next WCOPMA event is set for another trip to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on the April 26-28 weekend in conjunction with the PSCA event.