BUDDS CREEK, Md. — Jim Halsey scored his fourth consecutive Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous low qualifier award at the fourth race on the Professional Drag Racers Association’s eight-race tour, the North vs. South Shootout presented by Line-X on Friday night.
Halsey recorded a 3.672-second pass at 206.13 mph on the historic Maryland Int’l Raceway eighth-mile strip.
As a two-time and defending world champion in Pro Nitrous, Jim Halsey has won at several tracks on the PDRA tour. He’s still chasing his first win at his home track on the PDRA schedule, MDIR, but his 3.672 at 206.13 proved that his Brandon Switzer-tuned, Fulton-powered “Daddy Shark” ’68 Camaro is capable of getting the job done on Saturday.
“We get spoiled,” Halsey said, referencing his success in qualifying this season. “We went .73 this morning – I think we were No. 3 – and we were pretty upset about that. That wasn’t good. So it felt good to step up and go No. 1, especially since we’re close to home. I’d like to put on a show for our fans here. I think we’ll have a bunch of people from our racetrack [Cecil County Dragway] watching tomorrow, so hopefully I can bring it home for them too. I’ve never done well here, so hopefully tomorrow that will change.”
Another Maryland native, Fredy Scriba, qualified right behind Halsey with a 3.696 at 203.25 in his Musi-powered “Sorcerer” ’69 Camaro. Nazareth, Pennsylvania’s Mike “Mountain Man” Achenbach grabbed the No. 3 spot with his Buck-powered ’69 Camaro, capping off a string of consistent passes with a 3.698 at 205.04.
Johnny Camp (Penske/PRS Pro Boost presented by WS Construction), J.R. Carr (Liberty’s Gears Extreme Pro Stock presented by AED Competition), Dillon Voss ($hameless Racing Pro Outlaw 632), Chris Garner-Jones (Drag 965 Pro Nitrous Motorcycle) and Jesse Lambert (Drag 965 Pro Street) also led qualifying in their respective pro classes.
After two of three qualifying sessions, the sportsman No. 1 qualifiers are John Benoit in MagnaFuel Elite Top Sportsman presented by Tejas Borja, Peter Maduri in Lucas Oil Elite Top Dragster, David Lambert in MagnaFuel Top Sportsman 32, and Mike Kopko in Lucas Oil Top Dragster 32.
The PDRA’s future stars in the Jr. Dragster classes continue to impress with their level of competition. C.J. Jenkins IV and Evan Cox both ran perfect 7.900s in Coolshirt Systems Pro Jr. Dragster, with Jenkins taking the provisional No. 1 spot with his faster speed. Mallory Mattox is the provisional low qualifier in Classic Graphix Top Jr. Dragster with a .003 reaction time in her Lynchburg, Virginia-based ’03 Halfscale.