Despite predictions of rain, Saturday has proven to be clear and quick – so smooth in fact that a fourth round of heads-up qualifying was added to the drag program to take advantage of the extra time.

Click here for Friday coverage…

Second Round Qualifying

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Left to right: Baskin, Massingill, and Strong

In the second round of All Motor qualifying, only Rob Strong improved on his Friday performance, and then only marginally, picking up six thousandths of a second round to round but not changing the order.

In Drag Radial, Mike Brown turned up for round two to expand the field to five cars and slip past Mark Carlyle with a 4.630 pass. Carlyle improved on his first run with a 4.63 of his own, followed by a seven. Mark Koehler, Anthony Manna, and Bill Trovato held their respective places, but all improved significantly on their opening efforts.

The top four in Real Street held their positions in the pecking order, with Kevin Rounsavall still the only seven-second competitor in the 13-car field. George Farkouh bumped his way into the fast five, with the balance of the field trading positions through the mid-eights.

True Street

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Chris Bishop of Fort Wayne, Indiana took top honors in True Street with a three run average of 8.901 seconds.

Qualifying Round Three

In All Motor, Jud Massingill found an 8.4XX to challenge Baskin, but remained in second place a bare six thousandths behind. The Drag Radial field stayed in lock-step as well, with four of five now in the four-second zone and Mike Brown ratcheting the pole ET down to 4.590. Only Real Street saw a shakeup in the ranks, with Litz pushing Preston out of third place and into fourth.

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This year's engine swap challenge subjects were a pair of matching Malibu wagons. The SBC engines that came out are going back in, and both cars are up for auction, with final bids tomorrow afternoon.

Autocross Top Five:

Final Qualifying

The unexpected “bonus” fourth round of qualifying kicked off on Saturday evening with an unfortunate bang, as Drag Radial racer Mark Koehler lost steering control in the very first pair down the track and drifted into the right-hand wall in the shut-down area. If a drag racing crash can be described as “gentle,” though, this was it, and we expect to see him back in action in eliminations tomorrow.

Koehler will pair up in the first round with Bill Trovato, who had his own minor misfortune in the final qualifying round when a nitrous backfire just off the line ended his attempt to get a clean qualifying pass in the books. After the momentary fire was out, Trovato was able to refire his 5th Gen and get down-track under his own power.

Out of all five in the class, only Mark Carlyle managed to run quicker in the final round, but not quick enough to unseat top qualifier Mike Brown. Brown will get a first round competition bye on Sunday, with Carlyle and Manna squaring off as the other first round pair.

While Rounsavall, Delaney, and Litz held on to the top three spots in Real Street, Farkouh bumped Preston down into fifth, and Falcon moved up one slot to push Coulter out of the number six slot. In the first round, Rounsavall will get the odd-field bye, Preston will face Pratt, Litz will race Bulach, Falcon will go against Schaeffer, Delaney will be paired will Polly, Farkouh will run Dawson, and Coulter will match up with Belcher.

In the cooler evening air, Don Baskin managed to find almost a whole tenth, dropping from 8.467 to 8.371, while Massengill stood pat at 8.473 and Strong picked up two full tenths, running 8.643. Baskin gets the competition bye into the final round, whole Massengill and Strong will pair up to see who will take him on.

That’s it for today, LS fans… Check back tomorrow for more from the 5th annual Holley LS Fest!