Welcome to the exhilarating start of Rocky Mountain Race Week at Tulsa Raceway Park! The sun blazed down relentlessly today, setting the stage for not only a challenging day… but a challenging week of racing.
Over the next week, I will follow along on RMRW as the route takes us from Tulsa Raceway Park to the Texas Motorplex, Thunder Valley Raceway, MoKan, and then Back to Tulsa.
Day one of RMRW brings along a lot of anxiety and nerves for racers… especially today with a heat index of over 100 degrees. Many racers struggled to find the right balance of power and grip. Some decided to not run until the sun was off of the track to ensure they had the best chance at making a clean pass. Despite these challenges, the atmosphere at Tulsa Raceway Park was electric with anticipation and camaraderie.
For Bryant Goldstone, today was a triumph. He is coming straight off of a win at “Sick Summer” which is another drag and drive event that happened only two weeks ago. Bryant was one of the many racers that waited for the track temps to go down before making a pass. When you are talking about a car that can go well into the 6 second range at over 200mph… you want the track conditions to be near perfect. Bryant was able to click off a 6.81 at 216mph, which puts him in the number one spot in unlimited with Jason Hurley in second with a 7.78.
As for the other classes, Ricky Daniels leads the Ultimate Radial class in his Fox Body with a 7.91 at 174mph. Bill Armstrong leads stick shift with a 9.11. Mike Hazelwood leads the pro street class in his nova with an 8.32. Jim Parkinson, in his 1978 Camaro, leads the outlaw street class with an 8.81. There are plenty of other classes that we will catch up with as the week goes on.
Stay tuned as we bring you more updates and highlights from Rocky Mountain Race Week, where each day brings new stories of speed, determination, and the relentless pursuit of victory on not only the racetrack… but open road as well.
This story was originally published on June 24, 2024.
The post Blog Entry: Day 1 of Rocky Mountain Race Week at Tulsa Raceway Park first appeared on Drag Illustrated.