Drag Illustrated Issue 150, November 2019 | Page 28
Dirt
Aged to Perfection
T
his year marked the ten-year an-
niversary of the Yellowbullet.com Na-
tionals, held over Labor Day weekend
at Cecil County Dragway in Rising
Sun, Maryland.
During that time, the race has been nothing
short of a monumental success, especially consid-
ering event promoter and Yellowbullet.com owner
Monty Mikho didn’t originally want to do it.
“It spun off the website Yellowbullet.com, and
a lot of members were pushing to have me put an
event on,” Mikho says. “I’ve got businesses that I
run in my daily life, so I didn’t want to take that
undertaking on. As the site developed, I seen an
opportunity that said, ‘Wow, sponsors are willing
to give us money.’ I could just take that money
from the site and roll it into an event.”
Although they live 600 miles apart, Mikho
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I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
partnered with Cecil County track owner and
Pro Nitrous racer Jim Halsey to hold the event.
While Mikho admits the first year was a bit of a
mess, the race soon grew so large, he actually had
to start cutting classes and limiting car counts.
By year five, there were 660 cars on the property,
making it difficult to complete the race in a timely
manner. Mikho believes he finally reached the
sweet spot this year, with just under 400 cars
spread across 10 classes.
Headlining the event was the Pro Mod class,
where the Hard Racing team made a loud state-
ment. Teammates Tyler Hard and Kevin Mc-
Curdy maneuvered their way through opposite
sides of the ladder before meeting each other in
the final round. Along the way, they took out big
names such as Halsey, Jay Cox, Dean Marinis,
and Chuck Ulsch.
“I think when you look at the qualifying sheet
and the ladder, we were certainly the underdogs
for the race, especially given what Jay Cox and
Jim Halsey put down in qualifying,” Hard says.
“We were extremely happy and elated to be in the
final running against one another.”
In the final round, it was Hard overcoming a
huge holeshot to score the victory, running a 3.71
to McCurdy’s 4.01.
“I think Kevin’s car was running a little bit
better than mine through eliminations,” Hard
says. “We ended up finding a few little things
throughout the day, and certainly got some luck
along the way.”
It was an incredible performance from a team
that just recently changed its entire performance
combination, complete with brand-new Noonan
engines and a switch in power adders.
Issue 150
Yellowbullet.com Nationals celebrates 10th anniversary By Craig Cook