Barrier Breaker: Geoff Turk Blasts Into 7’s In Factory Stock Drag Pack Challenger
During the offseason, Holley made waves when it announced a huge bonus program for NMCA’s Factory Super Car competitors, the Holley EFI Seven Second Club. Promising racers in the ultra-competitive class a generous $5,000 bonus for the first Factor Super Car pass in the 7-second zone, as well as the bragging rights that come from being the first racer to smash through the 8-second barrier. It was also announced that if the racer who made the first 7-second run in the class was utilizing Holley’s EFI system, they’d receive another $5,000. The next four drivers to blitz the 7-second zone will receive $1,000 gift certificate for Holley’s extensive product lineup, and all five drivers would get commemorative 7 Second Club jackets.
As of yesterday, the barrier has fallen. FSC competitor Geoff Turk wheeled his sinister 2015 Drag Pack Challenger known as the Blackbird to a 7.996 elapsed time at the NMCA’s Muscle Car Madness event in Bradenton, Florida. Turk’s car is equipped with Holley EFI, so he was awarded both portions of the bonus money, totaling $10,000 to go with his jacket commemorating the occasion. The pass came in qualifying at Muscle Car Madness, leaving the other competitors very little time to take a shot at smashing the barrier.
Turk’s Drag Pack car is powered by a supercharged 354 CID HEMI powerplant that had pushed Turk to the brink of the 7-second zone at the end of the 2017 season. He, along with several other FSC teams, had come within a heartbeat of breaking the barrier, which prompted Holley to create the 7 Second Club over the winter. I don’t know if they expected the club to gain its first member at the first race of the season, but with the other drivers knocking on the door, Geoff knew he needed to lay it down quickly, and he did just that, lighting up the boards with the barrier-smashing pass in the first round of qualifying at the season’s first event.
Team Speed Society Racing’s own Leah Pritchett is also competing in the FSC class as well and had hoped to take a shot at the barrier, but she had to pull a heroic engine swap just to make the first round of qualifying. She did get her 2009 Drag Pack Challenger put back together and into the lanes for Q1, where they had a “soft” tune in the car that put her into the field in the #9 spot with an 8.13 elapsed time. Look for her ET’s to drop throughout the weekend as they refine the tune in her car, hopefully getting her quick enough to earn one of the four remaining spots in the 7 Second Club.
