Saturday brought the highest car count of the week with 331 entries staging up for the first round of the Silver State HVAC $50,000 race at the JEGS Performance Summer Fling presented by OPTIMA Batteries at Bristol Dragway.
The fifth and final day of the event meant an event MVP would be crowned. A shortlist of racers was narrowed down to two including Jon Corbin and Jeff Taylor. Round wins and average reaction times came into consideration, but it was ultimately Taylor’s Wednesday $15,000 Warm-Up win and Friday $50,000 runner-up that led the Fling Team to present Taylor with the 2024 Summer Fling MVP Award. The title follows Taylor’s Spring Fling GALOT MVP Award after racing himself in a 50K final round back in April, making him the Fling Race Series’ first ever two-time MVP.
The ladder for the last day for 50K included Matt Dadas in two entries, Matt Cooke, Wallace Wilson, Carson Brown, Jayden Lawler, Cameron Manuel, and Shannon Gilmore. Cooke was .009 taking .003 to be dead-on nine to knock out the .013 and dead-on eight of Dadas’s first entry. The next pair saw Brown put together .014 over Wilson, while Lawler was .020 and dead-on one crossing the stripe first by .003 while Manuel was .003 on the tree and a few hundredths above. On his second entry, Dadas and Gilmore were separated by just .001 on the tree but it was Dadas who put it dead-on eight taking .003 to move on to the semifinals.
Cooke and Dadas lined up for a rematch of the quarterfinals but it ended on the starting line when Cooke turned it two-thousandths red and ran dead-on 6, while Dadas’s .004 earned him lane choice in the final round. The lone dragster of Lawler and the 2000 S-10 of Brown were .001 apart at the hit and Lawler put it closer to the dial to advance.
Both drivers were no strangers to big money final rounds with Dadas chasing after a third Fling event title and Lawler looking to continue his hot streak after a $50,000 win a month prior and take home his first Fling check. Neither disappointed with Lawler letting go .009 and running dead-on eight for the Silver State $50,000 win against the .007 and one-thousandth under of Dadas.
After a two week intermission, the last Fling event of the season will again take place at Bristol Dragway for the richest paying race on the tour for the RAD Torque Systems Fall Fling 500K presented by OPTIMA Batteries where Friday’s champion will secure a guaranteed half million dollars. The highly anticipated 15th anniversary event sold out 425 pre-entries in just five minutes. Catch all of the action live September 24-28 on @RaceTheFlings on YouTube where our in-house production team will provide unforgettable event coverage free to the viewer courtesy of JEGS Performance and Mickey Thompson.
For more information, visit www.BracketRaces.com, the Spring Fling Bracket Races Facebook page, watch live @RaceTheFlings on YouTube, or text the word 500K to (347) 974-7007 for race updates.
This story was originally published on September 9, 2024.
The post Jayden Lawler Crowned Silver State HVAC $50,000 Saturday Champion at the Summer Fling first appeared on Drag Illustrated.