Butler Performance Frantic 4
As we stated in our Norwalk recap part 1, the 2014 Norwalk event was plagued with a fair amount of rain on Saturday which hampered some of the racing. Friday and Sunday were very nice and provided for some exciting racing.
Bill Mellott’s ’65 Pro Mod GTO was looking KILLER as usual and he ended up running his career best mph to date when he qualified #2 with his 7.074 ET at 211.63 mph. That video has been uploaded to our Youtube channel as well.
We were looking for a better pass from Mellott Racing in Q2 but it appears they got a tad too aggressive with the tune and they shook the car pretty hard. Bad enough to take the Mellott team out of the competition by breaking the cars third member.
Mark Kauffman was looking to defend his 2013 championship in the Frantic 4 with his ’02 GXP. Mark’s GXP was the only naturally aspirated car in this high horsepower field. The GXP was qualified #3 with a 7.087 ET at 196.33 mph; however, in the final round of qualifying the GXP’s chutes did not deploy which made for a more exciting ride than Mark was looking for. He told us that ” the GXP’s carbon fiber brakes were working OVER TIME on that pass!” The car ended up sliding off the end of the track and fortunately did not suffer any damage. The cars front tires did not fair very well though… while the brakes were locked up, two flat spots were created on the tires and this ended Mark’s weekend racing.
2014 Butler Frantic 4 Qualifying sheet
The final round of qualifying saw both Mark Kauffman and Bill Mellott out of the competition which resulted in John Welter and Rodney Butler in the finals. Unfortunately, Rodney Butler could not make the call for the finals and John Welter captured the 2014 Frantic 4 Championship on an uncontested pass. John did run his best time of the weekend posting a 7.299 ET at 205.39 mph! Congratulations John Welter!
Exhibition Class
This year the exhibition class saw event regulars Eric Larson (Elite 10 member) and Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick back for more action. Newcomer Jeff Kauffman really put on a show this year. Over the course of the weekend Jeff Kauffman ran some VERY impressive times and he broke a few records as well.
Once just was not enough for veteran drag racer, Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick!
Does this look dangerous or what?!?!? Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick put on a fireworks display when he staged his car for one of his exhibition passes at Norwalk 2014. After getting the first fire snuffed out, he staged the car again. The car snorted out an even larger fireball the second time around!! You can see what transpired in the video below….. Enjoy!
And last but certainly not least was newcomer Jeff Kauffman in the Kauffman Racing Equipment TAD. On Jeff’s first pass of the weekend he ripped off a 6.159 @ 239.53 mph. That right there was the quickest and fastest pass EVER made at a Norwalk event! It was also the first Pontiac powered pass to break the 230 mph barrier. You can see that pass here on our Youtube channel.
Jeff and the KRE Digger we not done yet…. his second pass he slowed down a little running a 6.177 but ran an AMAZING 241.32 mph! Making him the first Pontiac powered driver to run over 240 mph. You can see that pass here on our Youtube channel. 2 records in 1 day, not too shabby for his first time exhibiting the car instead of bracket racing it. Obviously the KRE Team was on a mission this Norwalk weekend and well on their way to being the 1st to run a 5 second Pontiac Powered Pass. The KRE Team was without a doubt “in the ZONE” on Norwalk weekend 2014!
