2023 Outa Sight Drags
The weekend has come to a close and turned up as an “Out of Sight” ending. Oh, the event was the Out of Sight held at Great Lakes Dragaway Friday and Saturday. This is the first time in five years this event hasn’t been rained on. Mother nature held it off but on my way home around midnight Saturday it rained like all hell 25 miles north from the track. Temps on Friday were in the low to mid 80’s and Saturday brought a little warmer temps but a nice breeze from the east off Lake Michigan.
Thursday they already had 120+ car entries. Don’t know what the final tally ended up to be, but more came in both Friday and Saturday. Plenty of iron to watch and observe in the pits.
The track was very good both days as I didn’t hear any complaints from anyone about not hooking. Several personal records were broken by Dennis Sherer, Ike Andrews and Milt Schreindl. Our cars put on one heck of a showing both in the pits and performing on the track. Friday evening we did a group session grudge race against the host club Brew City Gassers and scored 10 wins to their 3. Saturday we didn’t fare as well losing I was told 5 wins to their 7 wins. Total up the two nights and we had 15 wins to BCG’s 10 wins. Good job NSS Inc racers. We had five runs on Friday and four runs on Saturday for the group.
We had a 1963 Dodge Dart Max Wedge four speed altered wheel base run with us for both days. One beautiful car from Fond Du Lac, WI owned and driven by Bill Moon.
Tom and Mary Kowal were there crewing on their son Tom Jr’s dragster. Tom Jr heads up match raced Grinwald’s Gold Digger and you know who won, Grinwald on top by a couple of tenths. Tom is getting a little closer on getting the “Faded Memories” finished and hopefully be out sometime with us this season. Great to see them both.
Chris Heuton with the “Little Tig” is improving on getting down the track quicker. Dennis Sherer had the biggest smile on his face I’ve ever seen on him after running his personal best ET. The “Black Rushin” driven by Jeff Reynolds this past weekend was standing tall. Jeff took over driving for the event from Dave Doyle who could not attend. The 62 Pontiac of Mike Sypien was standing tall and looking good. Mike had some shifter linkage problems on his four speed and spent some time under the car getting it straightened out. Ike’s two tons of fun Ford ran its best times ever. We need Dennis and Ike to put on a show for us sometime and have their four tons of iron square off.
Dan Janke brought his spare Hemi 64 Plymouth “Strike of Midnight” is one nice car tastefully done and fast. While were on Hemi’s Milt Schreindl’s 65 Dodge Hemi flexed its muscles and ran in the 8’s giving the Grinwald 65 AWB Hemi and “Elephant” some great competition in that ET range.
Gordy Long’s “Long Gone“ is another car that is an eye catcher to all and let’s not forget Dan Kuenster’s Impala SS as many camera lenses were pointed in the direction of that clean machine.
Gordy also had his “Patriot Missile” 62 Dart there on Saturday and ran it. Another cool looker along with John Grinwald’s “Asphalt Elephant” which was also there and John used both his cars for the event. Doug Henderson’s “Never Too Late” was looking and running good. This is the first time in a long time I didn’t see him working on carbs. Lookin’ good Doug.
SOS Ken Kinnucan , oh the SOS is for Secretary of State as Bob Wilkiewicz calls him. He was put in charge of matching our cars up with the Gassers. He is our only AMC car in our organization and would be nice if we had a couple more. Lastly, my car is up and running and felt good to be back in the “Angel”.
We had 14 drivers for the event which was our best showing at this event. Others in attendance were, Rick Mortenson, Miley Lack, Jamie and Rachel Gresk, Butch Henze, Jayk Gutsdorf, Alicia Henderson, Bob Wilkiewicz, Jaynie Heuton, Tyler Kukla, Sandy Janke, Dan Hradisky, Bob Kinnucan, Tom Gutzdorf, Chris LaPash Jr, Earl Johnson, Kelly Kukla, Ryan Long, Katie Struss, AJ DuQuette, Pat O’Brien, Chris LaPash, Mark Mullarky, Eric DUQuette, Larry Otto, Kenny Lack, Joe Szydlo and Jeff Fair.
Thank you, Kelly Kukla, Jaynie Heuton and Miley Lack, for bringing the cold water bottles to the drivers in the staging lanes, well appreciated by all. Alicia the cookies and brownies were great as usual. Jamie and Rachel Gresk, thanks for sitting out there for two days in the heat selling our merchandise.
Lastly to the important jobs performed by the coordinator Bob Wilkiewicz and our two ladies on the line Kelly Kukla and Jaynie Heuton, you guys made it ROCK !!
Thanks to AJ DuQuette and his spotter for baking out in the sun taking photos.
In all thanks to all that took part in this event as we were really appreciated by the Hosting Brew City Gassers who are also a great organization.
Rich