Justin Martin Shatters Limited Drag Radial Record At No Mercy 9

In just it’s third year of existence, Limited Drag Radial has quickly become one of the most exciting classes in drag racing. The brain child of Jason Rueckert and Tyler Crossnoe, the class features some of the best looking and fastest cars on small tires, a combination that makes it a hit with the fans and racers alike.

Earlier this year, at Crossnoe’s Outlaw Street Car Reunion, Oklahoman Justin Martin lowered the class record to 4.11 seconds, a number that was expected to stand as the benchmark for quite some time. As the teams rolled into South Georgia Motorsports Park for No Mercy 9, the forecast called for anything but record performances, with a sweltering, humid weekend promised for the Valdosta area.

Martin and his engine builder/tuner Peter Harrell apparently forgot to check the forecast, though, as they decided that there was no need to wait for cooler conditions to take a shot at dropping the record even farther. When the ladder just happed to give Justin a bye in the semi finals, he and Harrell tapped on that “Up” arrow, sending as much power as possible to the rear tires in hopes of lighting up the boards with a huge number.

And a huge number is exactly what they put. In fact, Martin not only lowered the record, he became the first man in the class to dip into the 4.0 range when the timers flashed a 4.097 at 189 MPH. To put this in perspective, I’ve been around this type of racing for about 5 years now and when I started paying attention, Radial vs the World was only running 4-teens. That class has now knocked a full half second off those times, but Crossnoe and Rueckert have vowed to keep LDR in check and not let it become a wild-west style shootout like RvsW to help keep costs in check for the racers.

Congrats go out to Martin, Harrell and the crew responsible for this team putting up such huge numbers, and also taking the win at the event as well.