Top Dog Jamie Chappell , ‘ War Eagle ’ team take $ 20,000 victory in Piedmont Dragway ’ s Big Dog Allstar event By Greg Burrow
It was just a year ago that Jamie and Gina Chappell , Justin Carmack , Terry Coyle , Chuck Ford , Robbie Matthews , and the rest of the “ War Eagle ” team won a bigmoney race at historic Piedmont Dragway during the Big Dog vs . the World event . One year later , on October 12 , after running the entire Big Dog schedule of six races , the team was looking to repeat in the fall event but this time , a healthy $ 20,000 was going to the winner . As this is a one-day event , plans were made for an eight-car field or a 16-car field , or anywhere in between . General manager Rick Moore and track owner Ron Senecal tried to plan for any alternative and were pleased to see 12 cars come through the gate for a shot at the very healthy purse . Runs in the 200 mph range were the order of the day as during qualifying seven of eight cars were at 200 MPH or above . All eight cars were in the 3.80 or quicker zone .
The No . 9 qualifier was Doug Winters ’ Chevelle at a 3.818 with Michael Dawkins in the No . 11 spot with a 3.947 , and recent PDRA ProStars winner Tim Lawrence at 4.20 for the No . 12 spot . The No . 10 spot went to a racer absent from the scene for way too long , Dale Brinsfield , having recently purchased the orange Camaro of SomeTime Racing , recently driven by Jayme Thompson . Brinsfield shook off the dust with a great 3.909 for the No . 10 spot , only to fall short of qualifying for the field as was the fate of Winters , Dawkins , and Lawrence .
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This qualified field began with Barry Mitchell in ‘ Cuda Time ’ at a 3.729 at 203.57 , with 2023 points champ Travis Harvey at 3.736 at 201.07 . No . 3 was Chappell ’ s beautiful split-window ’ 63 Corvette coming in at a 3.765 at 200 mph in a car built by Tommy Mauney over 14 years ago . No . 4 was Jason Harris ’ 3.767 at 203.25 , with the fifth spot going to Mauney in his personal car at 3.771 at 201.02 . Cam Clark landed in the sixth spot with a 3.782 at 202.02 . Another TM splitwindow ’ 63 , driven by Tony Wilson , landed in the No . 7 spot with a great 3.791 at 201.52 . The final spot went to Robbie Keziah in yet another TM ’ 63 split-window Corvette at 3.804 at 199.68 mph .
With the field set , first out was Harris against Mauney . Harris ran a 3.742 to defeat Mauney ’ s Camaro . Second out was the War Eagle team against Clark . The Corvette ran a 3.73 at 202
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mph to defeat Clark , who had problems down track . Third out was a repeat of the final from September ’ s race with Harvey facing off against Wilson ’ s screw-blown Premier Concrete Finishing Corvette . The victory went to Harvey at 3.712 over Wilson ’ s Corvette . The final pairing put team cars against each other with Mitchell up against the TM Corvette of Keziah . Mitchell and Cuda Time put down a track record 205.33 MPH at 3.710 in the WYO Motorsports Cuda to defeat Keziah ’ s Corvette .
Semifinal action was just as hot and heavy with Mitchell running a 3.72 at 205 to defeat Harris ’ game 203.98 even with brushing the wall just past the finish line . Mitchell proved that he was dead serious about winning the event by putting a . 000 light on the board . The other pair consisted of Harvey going red with a 3.717 at 203.11 to put
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREG BURROW AND BENOIT PIGEON |