FIghTIng The Good FIghT
The support mechanism turned into better
resources thanks to the car owners, and more
resources soon turned into a guy like Oplawski
coming on board. The team also started work-
ing with Menscer and his Menscer Motorsports
shocks and struts, a move Slavens called pivotal
for the team’s success.
It was the latest in a series of turning points,
one that led to the team’s first 3-second run. By
2017, he was into the 3.80s, enjoying some mild
success in the RvW ranks.
“For us, it was just huge to get into the 3s and
start trying to chip away at it,” says Oplawski,
who started working with the team at the start
of the 2017 season. “That was pretty remarkable
at the time.”
It’s only gotten more incredible since then, with
the final straw being the Neal Chance Racing
Converter they put into the car before the 2019
season. From there, it was like the car was run-
ning with a rocket launcher.
After going to the semifinals at Lights Out 9 –
“There’s just what,
three or four of us
left with a stock-
style car,” Slavens
continues. “I have
had that conversation
about we’re carrying
the torch.”
along with some wins at smaller races – Slavens
was after a big 2019, but not one where he was
expecting to become a folk hero of sorts for the
class. In just a few runs, he was set to become the
lifeline of the soul of Radial vs. the World racing.
“It’s the ‘No Mod.’ It’s very cool, very humbling,”
Oplawski says.
Says Slavens: “It’s really unbelievable.”
T
he test run in Bradenton sent the
first shockwave through the radial rac-
ing community. Making a test hit before
the U.S. Street Nationals in January of
2019, Slavens obliterated his career-best,
launching all the way into the 3.60s with a mas-
sive 3.643 at 214.79. Just like that – about as
quickly as Slavens went from start to finish in
emphatic fashion – cult hero status had arrived.
Fans now show up with pictures of their ’69
Camaro sitting in the garage or a different car
from that era, explaining what that means to
see Slavens rocketing down the eighth-mile in a
steel-bodied Camaro.
That he’s one of the last remaining in that style
adds to the lore, creating a mystique that is slow-
ing fading with the immersion of Pro Mod-style
cars in RvW. It’s a natural progression in a class
and a sport hell-bent on technology and always
going quicker, but Slavens – at least as recently
as a year ago – was surviving with old school.
He’s not doing it to make a point, but Slavens
will admit it is inspiring to see how much the
fans have rallied around his team.
“It’s pretty humbling to be honest with you,
and it’s probably not unlike many of us,” Slavens
says. “We go to the racetrack and we see a Fox-
body Mustang, or a fourth-gen Camaro, or our
‘69 Camaro going down the racetrack. All of us,
almost, have owned some of those in our lifetime.
So it’s easier for people to relate to those kinds of
cars and be able to support that than it is the Pro
Mod cars. So the people, the support is phenom-
enal. It’s unbelievable all the people that like the
factory-style car. They can relate to it and I get
where they’re coming from. ‘I grew up that way,’
that kind of thing.”
“There’s just what, three or four of us left with
a stock-style car,” Slavens continues. “So I know
(Mark Woodruff ) and I have had that conversa-
tion about we’re carrying the torch. So we’re still
going out there every time with the intent to let
them know we’re still around.”
Which leads into one of the greatest runs of
all time in RvW racing and it just so happens it
came on the biggest stage, Lights Out 10.
With conditions nearly perfect, Slavens un-
corked a run that will be played and replayed
for years, going 3.621 at 217.74 in front of a huge
Thursday night crowd in Valdosta. It eclipsed
Mark Micke’s previous record, and though the
record didn’t last the weekend – with drivers
dipping into the 3.50s by the end of it – it was
unquestionably the run that had everyone talking.
Mention Lights Out 10 and Slavens’ run is usu-
ally the first thing – and second, at worst – that
is mentioned. “I’ll be perfectly honest. I never
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