Eric LaFerriere and White Rice CRUSH the X275 World Record in Rockingham

Well that certainly the hell didn’t take very long. Within the last few months White Rice has gone out and obliterated the X275 record not once, but twice.

Most people knew the Rockingham was going to be a hell of a show. It’s a historic track and after the decision that Donald Long made to move his Battle of the Thrones there, you knew the track was going to live up to it’s historic reputation. Not only was the X275 record reset, there were plenty of personal bests and even side by side .51’s in Radial vs. The World.

Back to White Rice though. Earlier this year, Eric and the team decided that it would be in their best interest to absolutely nuke the class and drop the first ever 4.0’s pass in X history. I was lucky enough to be there and witness it in person. In a sport where there isn’t much that grabs my attention anymore, this was one of those “oh shit that really happened moments”, but then we all thought, well who’s going to be the next to do it? Will we see rule changes preventing this from going any further?

This weekend at Rockingham showed that White Rice, along with a host of others, certainly have the power, knowledge, and ability to decimate the entire field at will. Eric went out and laid down an astronomical 4.03 at 184 mph in X legal trim. You didn’t read that wrong…after more than a decade and a half of competition, this class has now become more than four tenths quicker than David Wolfe’s jaw dropping performances in 2010 running Boost vs. No Boost and dropping unheard of at the time mid 4.40’s in his orange Mustang with new to everyone bullhorns on it.

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Not to be outdone if you will, Ron Rhodes, who has been racing the class forever, became the second driver to bust into the 4.0’s when his nitrous powered Camaro laid down a 4.08, which would have been a new record had Eric not dropped in you know what on the concrete and made everyone take notice that X is well within the realm of LDR territory now. There were also pass at 4.10 and 4.11 over the weekend by competitors. I believe if memory serves me, the McCain team had a 4.11 pass in qualifying.

I am honestly not sure where the class goes from here, but you can bet that I will be discussing on my podcast this week. While records are fun, let’s not forget that none of the cars I mentioned above actually won the race though, the race winner was Alan Felts from Kentucky! So kudos to all the personal bests and new records, congratulations to Alan on the race win as well.