This really was a weekend of the highest of highs and lowest of lows. While you were out enjoying the weekend, E3xtreme was hard at work trying to cover all that was going on in the drag racing world. We saw new records, but we also saw crashes and we lost a great family this weekend. 

Let's take a look at all that happened this weekend since there is a lot to get though. We had races in Maryland, Texas, Oregon, and plenty of other places. So first up we will take a look at PDRA North/South at MDIR. 

Heat was the big word in Maryland over the weekend when track temps approached 150 degrees on both Friday and Saturday. This was a race where Outlaw 10.5 was included with the show, and there certainly was not a shortage of amazing 10.5 cars there. In the Pro Nitrous class, there was a four car shootout between Steve Jackson, Travis Harvey, Tommy Franklin, and Jay Cox on Friday night. Stevie Jackson came out on top when he knocked off Tommy Franklin for that cash. That was just the cash in the shootout before eliminations though. In Pro Extreme Brandon Snider shocked some people by his performances during qualifying with a 3.522 putting him at #1 in the field. There were a couple of major breath holders though, as Outlaw 10.5 legend Nick Agostino had one big fire ball and car had a lot of smoke billowing out at the top end. From what we hear though, the smoke was a lot worse than it looked. In another Oh No moment, Jay Cox and his Pro Nitrous car decided to practice the curb slide when he ended up on top of the wall. The car looked to go up and come down a lot easier than it appeared. We haven't spoken to Jay yet in regards to the extent of damages, but he is a strong competitor and hope he will  be back from Memphis next month. 

PDRA Final Results

• Pro Extreme- Tommy D'Aprile                                                                                                          Pro Nitrous-Tommy Franklin                                                                                                            Pro Boost- John Strickland                                                                                                             Pro Extreme Motorcycle- Eric McKinney                                                                                       Top Sportman- Butcher                                                                                                                   Top Dragster- Travis Laster                                                                                                              Outlaw 10.5- Mo Hall                                                                                                                        Pro Jr. Dragster- Cory Gulitti                                                                                                           Top Jr. Dragster- Mia Schultz                                                                                                          Bracket Bash- Anthony Cable                                                                                                       Extreme Pro Stock- John Montecalvo

Another race that was getting a lot of attention this weekend was a no prep race in Texas called Redemption 5.0. There was certainly some carnage at the race. Specifically Tim Savell, who most know as the NMCA Pro Mod racer currently sitting in first place in the points. He was racing the cousin car to his NMCA Pro Mod car and was in the left lane when it took a hard right and struck the wall, came back over and struck the left wall, before going back to the right and out into the field. We have been told that Tim is pretty beat up but doing ok. In the big tire class Birdman took the win, and in the small tire class Boosted GT took the win. Shannon Mogan did a great job putting on that race as well!

In St. Louis, Mel Roth was at Gateway putting on Rage by the River, which turned out to be a record setting event. Anyone who is from the Midwest or has been to Gateway or Joliet in the middle of July knows how bad that heat can be. The heat certainly wasn't stopping people from running great numbers. Kallee Mills was there running 275 Radial this weekend. Though she didn't grab the win this weekend, she did make it to the finals and ran new career bests all weekend. On the flip side, her father and radial superstar Dewayne Mills dropped the hammer on Saturday night. Dewayne, who owns the Golden Gorilla, which is powered by a Proline Racing engine, Precision Turbo hairdryers, and Menscer Motorsports shocks plant that power to the radials. He put everyone going to Donald's No Mercy VII race on notice when he became the first turbo powered radial car to drop into the 3.70's with a 3.799. This made him only the second radial car in the 3.70's. While the record is great, he still had to face off against Daniel Pharris in the finals and this time it came down the reaction time.  Daniel got the jump on Dewayne and beat him on a holeshot 3.90 to Dewayne's 3.81. Not to be forgotten was Brian Edwards in Outlaw 8.5 won took the win and impressed a lot of fans over the weekend. 

Some other highlights from the weekend include Brandon Pesz, who took the win in Outlaw 440 at Jeffers Motorsports Park. Our friend Donnie from Street Car Fabrication took home his first win at I22 Saturday night. Jimmy Plimpton in the Fearmont won at the MORS race held at Great Lakes Dragaway. Also Rick Sachsel had what appeared to be a bad fire in his Pro mod. We are uncertain the extent of damages, but based on what we saw, it wasn't good. 

Since we mentioned records lets talk about more that were set. Jason Rupert reset the IHRA Nostalgia Funny Car record. Jirka Kaplan and his converter car in Top Alcohol Funny Car this weekend at Woodburn, OR divisional race ran absolutely amazing numbers as well. We are still researching to determine if it is the fastest converter pass in TAFC though. 

Lastly we have to send prayers out to the Reece Family and the McMahan Family. Art Mcmahan was part of our drag racing family out of the Ohio Valley Dragway area. In fact he had just recently bought the late Jack Vanover's X275 car as well. On Friday the two families were boating on Lake Lanier in North Georgia when something went wrong with the boat they were in and all four passed away. We ask that you continue to send thoughts and prayers to both families.