Drag Illustrated Issue 131, April 2018 | Page 98

LIGHTS OUT 9 Whoa, Black Betty! O ne of the most underplayed storylines from Lights Out 9 was the consistently quick performance out of Paolo Giust and his supercharged ’69 Camaro nicknamed “Black Betty”. With a Roots-blown engine from MSR Performance, driven in directly to Valdosta from New York by none other than Jim Salemi, who built and tunes the car, Giust powered to seven con- secutive 3-second passes over the course of qualifying and elimina- tions. The Canadian driver started with a 3.99 and ended with a 3.787 at 198 mph against Keith Haney in the semifinals. “At the end of the day it’s all just about adapting to the track conditions and figuring out what the car will do, what the track will give you,” Giust told Compe- titionPlus.com’s Bobby Bennett. “Everybody’s got more power than they need, at the beginning for sure. And the quicker we can get the power back in, the better off we are, the quicker it will go.” – NATE VAN WAGNEN DI DI DI DI DI DOUBLE DUTY Running his “Goliath 2.0” ‘63 Nova in grudge races and the N/T Shootout apparently wasn’t enough for “Daddy Dave” Comstock, who also brought his ‘78 Chevy Malibu down from Oklahoma to compete in Limited Drag Radial. He also entered Radial vs. the World in attempt to get as many passes as possible in the new ProCharged- boosted G-body. 98 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com DI DI DI DI DI KEEPER OF THE PEACE X275 founder John Sears was on hand to manage the massive field of X275 racers who turned out to fight for the $10,000 payout. Issue 131