LIGHTS OUT 7
Star of the Show
KEITH BERRY
sole qualifying session, but that
was it. Would it make a pass quick
enough to qualify for what would
undoubtedly be the most competitive field in the history of drag
radial racing? Could he possibly
expect to squeak into the 32-car
field with over 50 other high-level racers eager for a shot at the
richest purse in the eliminator’s
relatively brief history?
“We had no intention of setting
the world on fire on Thursday,”
explains Berry. “We just wanted to
make it from A to B under power.
When I let off the line-lock and
started rolling out of the water it
literally felt like victory. Hey – at
least it’d do a burnout, right? So, I
go pull up and light the top bulb,
then I hit the button on the steering wheel for the bump box and
I’m like...’weird – it didn’t bump.’
And I’m thinking that my bump
box must be screwed up, so I let
out of it and roll it into the beams
and get back on it and I see all
these photographers waiving their
arms and yelling. I’m thinking
‘what the hell are these people
yelling about? Am I on fire?’ But
76 | D r a g
I just let off the transbrake and
motored on down through there.”
Little did he know that during
the scramble to get the car
together – and rewired – that the
buttons for his bump box and
parachutes had been accidentally reversed.
“When I hit the button to bump
the car into the stage beams, I’d
launched the parachutes,” says
Berry. “In all the rush and fuss to
get up to the lanes, we’d forgotten to plug in my radio, so they
couldn’t tell me and…well…I had
no idea. I let out of it in third gear
and it went to slow down and
I’m thinking the transmission is
binding or something; something
must be wrong – this thing is
wanting to slow down way too
much. I took the first turn off, got
out of the car and saw the ‘chutes
out and it all made sense. I knew
I hit the right button, but we just
had the wires backwards.”
The situation improved rapidly,
however, as Berry worked his way
into the field with a 4.092-second,
186.05 mph pass that would prove
good enough for the 24th spot on
the eliminations ladder. Jason Michalak led the way in PTC Radial
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
vs. World competition headed into
Saturday night’s opening stanza with a 3.876-second blast at
over 196 mph.
“We just barely got in the deal,”
says Berry, easily able to reimagine the concern he had prior to
the start of the race. “And my wife
and kids had drove almost 300
miles down there. These guys are
ripping off 3.80s and .90s left and
right; it’s like…holy shit. What
have we got ourselves into?
“I told everyone, ‘Listen, we
just don’t have enough passes on
the car yet. I’m telling my wife,
my kids, everybody, ‘look, we got
Enzo [Pecchini] first round. He
ran 3.96, and we don’t have a
three-second tune yet. We can’t
swing that hard for it, we have to
just go down the track and make
a 4.0 run. I was just trying to
prepare everyone; let them know
that there’s a serious chance we’re
going out first round and that nobody needs to get upset. You know
– we’ll stick around a little bit
tomorrow and watch some racing,
but we’ll get on the road and head
home at a decent time.”
One Pecchini wheelstand and a
Roger Holder red light later, Ber-
ry’s tune had officially changed.
“After we got through the first
couple rounds, having dodged a
bullet there in the second against
Holder when my car shut off
because we had some ignition
issues, it started to feel like we
might be onto something,” Berry
acquiesces, smiling and struggling
to contain his enthusiasm. “Eric
Dillard, Ryan [Rakestraw] and
[Steve] Petty, they’re all tuning on
this thing – Petty from the couch
at his house – and they’re figuring
it out. All of a sudden it’s starting
to feel like we might actually have
a fast and nobody realizes it.”
In the semifinal round Berry squared off against fellow
twin-turbo frontrunner Daniel
Pharris in his Missouri-based
SN95 Ford Mustang. Pharris was
decidedly late off the starting line
and shut off early as the sleek,
black Corvette zipped through the
eighth-mile clocks in 3.959-seconds to secure the victory for Berry and setup a titanic final round
alongside another one of outlaw
racing’s most colorful characters –
Stevie Jackson and the Phil Shuler/Todd Tutterow-tuned, rootsblown Hemi-powered Fox Body
Issue 109
PHOTO: CHRIS SEARS
Though Berry was one of many heavy-hitting drag radial racers on
the property of South Georgia Motorsports Park in late February, he
was most likely the only one with a dedicated cheering section. Every time Berry and his Corvette made their way to the starting line, a
slew of fans in the grandstands would start yelling “Wooo!” – Berry’s
go-to, which he borrowed from professional wrestler Ric Flair.