Mark Micke Talks About His Legendary Blue Malibu, Dominating Sweet 16, And Radial VS The World Records

Mark Micke has been racing the car that he drives for Jason Carter for two decades. Along with that journey, the two have always been frontrunners in whatever class or niche they chose to compete in, often setting national records and taking home some big wins. However, early in the 2018 season at Donald “Duck” Long’s inaugural Sweet Sixteen, Micke, Carter and the blue Malibu collectively dropped a bomb on the entire sport when they not only knocked almost a tenth off the elapsed time record and tacked on a full six MPH to the previous records, they also marched through the competition to take home the $101,000 payday.

In this video from Competition Plus, one of the most respected names in drag racing coverage, Micke discusses a little bit of the car’s history and some of the background on how the car got to be the quickest and fastest radial tired car on the planet. A good bit of the focus is on Sweet Sixteen, where great weather, an insanely well-prepared track surface, and one gnarly steel-bodied Malibu combined to put on one hell of a show for the lucky fans on the South Georgia Motorsports Park property.

With extra qualifying rounds added due to the restricted class count – there were only two, compared to the dozen or more at a typical event – the field was packed extra tight, with an insane 3.76 bump spot. This meant that the teams had plenty of chances to throw all they had at the track, and let me tell you, the track was there! Wade Rich had the track prepped like no other, and the ridiculous Mickey Thompson radials bit hard, allowing the total number of cars to have ever breached the 3.60’s to go from zero to six in the course of a single weekend.

Once eliminations came to an end, there was only one man standing. Micke took out some stiff competition, including Ty Tutterow driving Barry Mitchell’s old Camaro who strapped a near-perfect light on Micke in the first round. Mark would go on to face the always-tough Dewayne Mills in the finals in a bit of an anti-climactic race as Mills knocked the tires loose around the 220’ mark, giving him the best seat in the house to watch the Malibu drive away to take the win and the cash!