PALMETTO NO-PREP

Speed .” With 106 cars over three classes , these racers would have to bring every bit of tuning knowledge to tackle the top end with one of the trickiest shutdown surfaces used for this style of racing .

Small Tire featured a 58-car field of the baddest street raced and no-prep cars in the country . The final four saw Robert Itani from Florida take a close victory over Indiana ’ s Shawn Fensler and Marty Wood Jr . from Florida take the win over Kendall Goin from Missouri . The all-Florida nitrous final ended with Itani ’ s “ Chickenhawk ”

RX7 taking the victory and $ 15,000 payday over Wood ’ s “ Billy Goat ” Nova .

Big Tire was fielded by a mix of Top Sportsman cars and some of the best in the street . The finals in Big Tire featured Kansas ’ s Ryan Mitchell , better known as “ KC Maxx ,” taking the win in one of the closest races of the event over Georgia ’ s Justin Smith . Mitchell ’ s win marked his third win in a row at the street side of Darlington Dragway , making him the most winning racer in Palmetto No-Prep ’ s inaugural season .

Outlaw Real Street brought 28 of the fastest true street cars to Darlington Dragway . With a mixture of imports and domestics , it came down

to a battle of the turbo LS powerplants , as Indiana ’ s Travis Martin took on South Carolina local Eric Burdette . After a tight race to the 330 , Burdette had to wheel his fox-body Mustang after it got loose and watched Martin drive his immaculate Camaro to the finish line , taking the win and bragging rights back to Mid America Kustoms in Indiana .

After the event , it was announced that backof-the-track racing would return to Darlington Dragway in 2022 with Palmetto No-Prep season 2 . The first event of the season , “ The Thaw Out 2.0 ,” will feature the same three classes and more on February 25-26 . DI

22 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated . com Issue 173