It was that time of year again for the DX-2 Birthday Bash Race on June 29th. This is the one that everyone wants to win. Larry Cuda had the longest traveler title coming out to the West Coast all the way from Georgia a couple of years ago. But this year heavy hitter "Hollywood" made the trip all the way from Virginia. The pits started filling up on Wednesday with racers testing their cars and getting ready. There was a warmup race on Wednesday night to get ready for the big event on Saturday. I took out Ron S in the finals to win that one. This is one of the races I really look forward to every year since the Inaugural one in 2020. They used to have the high limit dragster shootout on Friday night and a few index classes and the big bracket race on Saturday, but the event grew so large that the bracket race started at 3:00pm on Saturday one year and didn't finish until around 5:00 am Sunday morning. A few of us had already committed to drive 150 miles north to race in Bakersfield CA that day which I'm glad we did because I finished one round from the money rounds at the Bash, but I came away with the win in Bakersfield. This year they dropped a couple of the index classes and ran the High Roller Dragster Shootout, 1.200 index, and the main event Bracket class all on Saturday trying to make it a one-day race. But the Bracket class still didn't finish until around 1:15 am on Sunday. Ron S won a very tough Concourse class and a beautiful trophy, and Hollywood won the best build honor and a bottle of JD. Edgar P won the High Roller Dragster Shootout, and Keith D won the 1.200 class. I made it to the bottom 3 cars in the high roller dragster shootout but bumped my dial in up .002 and broke out by .002. If I had left it alone, I would have run a perfect dial and had a bye into the final round.
I ended up going 4 rounds in the 1.200 class and got beat when I had the other car covered, but I lifted right before the finish line to make sure I didn't breakout and he got by me to take the win by .001. I'm making some rookie type of mistakes that is starting to cost me a substantial amount of winnings.
But I made up for it in the main class that had 146 entries and the belt for being the 2024 Bracket Champion. It came down to Ron S and me in the semifinal with Ron having 1 car left and I having 2 cars left. I had run closer to my dial then Ron had in the previous round so one of my cars got a bye to the final round. I got the win over Ron with the other car so that advanced that car to the final round which gave me a win and runner-up finish and the Championship belt, plaques, prizes, and around $825.00 and the title of 2024 Bracket Champion. Now there will really be a huge target on my back.
The Wednesday night Warm Up Race results photo of Ron S and me.
