Drag Illustrated Issue 154, March 2020 | Page 32

Dirt OSCR Cancelled Promoter Tyler Crossnoe addresses the end of the Outlaw Street Car Reunion By Nate Van Wagnen T the first time in event history, the marketing sup- port is lower than ever and forcing our hand as a promotions company to cancel the event.” This wild event all began in 2013 with a one-day race at Memphis International Raceway, billed as “Outlaws – The Comeback,” in conjunction with a two-races-in-one weekend promotion with Holly Springs Motorsports Park, where Crossnoe and his team had helped with two events in 2012. In 2014, the Outlaw Street Car Reunion had its first event at Memphis International Raceway. The 2015 running of the event helped put the race on the map. An early spring snow flurry kicked up as Jason Michalak, Kyle Huettel and Billy Stocklin rolled the Bad9er Racing Corvette into the right-hand lane at Memphis and went 3.97 seconds, shattering the Radial vs. the World 32 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com record at the time. It was also where Street Out- laws superstars Justin “Big Chief ” Shearer and Shawn “Murder Nova” Ellington first made a pass with the scoreboards on. OSCR moved to Beech Bend Raceway Park in 2018. It was a year of growth for the event, as racer participation was up, and Pro Modified was added to the mostly small-tire lineup. Forces started working against Crossnoe and this race in 2019. An electrifying 3.599-second pass by Jamie Hancock, which would’ve been the first 3.50-second pass for a nitrous-assisted doorslammer, sparked controversy online. Rival small-tire promoter Donald “Duck” Long made a series of inflammatory remarks about the legiti- macy of the pass and others made in competition at OSCR VI. After the scrutiny and further review Issue 154 he 2020 small-tire racing sched- ule is now without one of its marquee events, the Outlaw Street Car Reunion, as promoter Tyler Crossnoe announced on February 18 that dwindling support from sponsors has led his company, Speed Promo- tions, LLC., to cancel the 2020 running of the race. Crossnoe addressed the issue in a post on the event’s website to explain the reason for the cancellation with two months left before the race. “This is going to be one of the hardest pieces of literature that I’ve ever had to write,” Crossnoe started. “We are deeply saddened to announce that the seventh edition of the Outlaw Street Car Reunion scheduled for April 15-18, 2020 at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been cancelled and will not be contested. For