TWO RINGS,
ONE HAT,
ONE SWORD
PHOTOS: JT HUDSON, CHRIS SEARS
With two NMCA Radial Wars
championships and a Lights Out title
to his credit, Berry has little to prove in
the world of drag racing, particularly
the D.O.T.-approved radial-tire
racing arena, but the Georgia-based
wheelman has no intentions of slowing
down. “I couldn’t be more proud of
what this group has accomplished,”
admits the generally brash and brazen
Berry, “but I can’t help but feel like
we’re just getting started – there’s a
lot more that we’d like to do.”
town of unknown name in the Canadian province of British Columbia – Berry picked up the turnkey
dragster and headed home with
intentions of unloading the digger
and massaging the big-inch small
block to fit his needs.
“We had a lot of stuff that we
wanted to change,” admits Berry.
“Different stroke, different rods
and pistons – a lot of stuff. By this
time, though, we were already
a few weeks away from Donald’s race. The plan was to put
something together that would,
hopefully, survive the one race and
then we’d reevaluate.”
Amidst a whirlwind of overnight shipping and praying for a
miracle, Pro Line Racing Engines,
who has long since been Berry’s
engine builder of choice, delivered
May 2016
the goods. With about 10 days
until Lights Out 7, Berry picked
up his 4.5-inch bore space, slightly
de-stroked 487ci small block utilizing a billet CN block and CFE’s
chargers from Precision Turbo.
“The week of the race we took
the car over to RK Racecraft –
my crew chief Ryan Rakestraw’s
place in Clarksville,” explains
“We had to stop. I was seeing shit on the
road; I was dying. I couldn’t play music
loud enough; couldn’t have enough
windows open. We were all smoked.
We pulled over and tried to rest for
about an hour, but we had to roll.”
latest SBX heads. From there the
car went to Joey Bell at Bell Chassisworks in Woodstock, Georgia,
where he installed the engine and
mounted the new 98mm turbo-
Berry. “He’d already been working
around the clock, finishing up a
new Outlaw Drag Radial Corvette
for Alepa Racing and a bunch of
other Pro Mod stuff, and then we
showed up with my car. I think
it was about three o’clock in the
afternoon on Monday that we got
started on my car. And the race
was going to start on Wednesday.”
Around 4:00 the following
morning, better than 12 hours
later and with the car still in a
thousand pieces, Berry realized
that the situation didn’t look
promising. While they’d come to
terms with missing the qualifying
rounds on both Wednesday and
Thursday, settling for a couple
shots on Friday and a final chance
on Saturday morning, Berry and
his high-energy, fun-loving squad
had their doubts.
“I text a few people, a few
friends, and let them know, ‘man,
I don’t think we’re going to make
it’”, he allows, clearly still amazed
that didn’t end up being the case.
“It felt like one of those deals
where everyone is thinking the
same thing – not like a good thing
– but no one wants to be the one
who comes out and says it. We’re
in the shop working on the car,
literally listening to the live feed of
the race we’re supposed to be at.”
Throughout the next two
days and into the wee hours of
the morning on Thursday they
thrashed. Parts came and went
– off to get powder coated or
modified – and finally, around
2:30 AM on Thursday, still up
on Pro Jacks with body panels
strewn about, Berry climbed into
the driver’s seat, reached up to
the switch panel and whirled the
engine over. By 4:00 that morning
they were southbound toward
Cecil. Though seemingly infinitely
shorter than their trip to “basically
Alaska” a few months prior, Berry
and company had to dig deep to
make it the final 265 miles of their
multi-month journey.
“We had to stop,” says Berry.
“I was seeing shit on the road;
I was dying. I couldn’t play
music loud enough; couldn’t have
enough windows open. We were
all smoked. We pulled over and
tried to rest for about an hour, but
we had to roll. I think we rolled
through the gates about 10:00 in
the morning.”
Having rewired the car from
front-to-back, along with the engine swap and new bigger turbocharger, Berry was confident the
car would fire up for Thursday’s
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