By Craig Cook

Driving“ John Doe,” his popular 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass, Taylor fought his way through six rounds of competition to best the 63-car field, defeating Justin Reed and his Dodge Daytona in the final round. It was an impressive weekend for Taylor, who originally wasn’ t going to bring the car that many Street Outlaws fans still remember him by.

“ To be honest, I was planning on bringing‘ Lil’ Goldie,’” Taylor says of his new big-tire’ 69 Camaro.“ I thought it was the caliber of car needed to win this event. John Doe is old, built in 1992 or 93. It’ s a very heavy, mild steel chassis. But Lil’ Goldie’ s been doing so well on big tires, I decided I didn’ t want to undo all that. I had a bracket motor in John Doe, ready to run the 5.30 class. I pulled it out and threw a Hemi in there.”

Taylor drew heavy hitter Todd Spiers in round one on Friday night, with Taylor winning a close side-by-side race. On Saturday, Taylor defeated Jimmy Mayo in the second round before rain postponed the rest of eliminations until Sunday. In the third round, Taylor outran Brandon Phillips to set up a huge quarterfinal matchup against recent King of the South champion Larry Larson and his’ 66 Chevy II.

After taking out Larson, Taylor would line up against an OG member of the 405 crew –“ Daddy Dave” Comstock – in the semifinals. Unfortunately, Comstock smoked the tires, giving Taylor

an easy victory en route to his final-round matchup against Reed. While Reed appeared to have an early advantage, Taylor used his Pro- Charger-boosted Hemi to pull ahead by a bumper at the stripe.

“ He’ s a killer,” Taylor says of Reed.“ I’ ve raced him at Gulfport Dragway and some of the smaller tracks, and he’ s an absolute killer. The craziest

thing of the whole weekend was in round one, I drew Todd Spiers. Todd is one of the fastest guys in the country, but he was my crew guy for race number one for NPK. And then in the finals, it was my other crew guy from race number one.”

The 63 cars entered into the event was a positive sign for Speed Promotions Racing, after the first few events struggled to reach 20 drivers in the Outlaw 32 big-tire class. Taylor enjoyed getting to see many teams show up that he admitted he hadn’ t seen in a long time.

“ I think these 28-inch-tire cars deserve some spotlight,” says Taylor.“ Speed Promotions did the no rules thing( with big tire) to make it more desirable, but it made it tough. It cost each team a lot of money. We had to get lighter, we needed more power, and then we had double power adders. By investing a little more in the small-tire stuff, I think these guys can come to light. And there’ s not just five guys that are killers over there. There’ s 25 people running 28-inch tires that not a lot of people have heard of, but are top-notch teams.”

In Taylor’ s opinion, the success of the event shows that perhaps small-tire racing is the future with SPR. With big-tire racing essentially becoming a professional-level class, many of the drivers that made it so popular to begin with have left due to increased costs. Taylor believes that taking a step back and running on 28s could bring many fan-favorites back into the mix.

“ In my opinion, there’ s going to be more big-money races on 28s,” Taylor says.“ I’ ve been pushing for it for about five years. A lot of guys on the show didn’ t really want to do it. They had a handle on the big-tire stuff, and they were hesitant to race on 28s. Now that they’ ve stuck their foot in the water, they liked it. I think it’ s exciting, and will bring what we need to get things back poppin’. The fans were there, the racers were there … why wouldn’ t we go that direction?” DI

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICK RUSSO, LUKE NIEUWHOF, AND DANNY STOGNER