Take A Ride With Lyle Barnett In The World Record Holding Leaf Spring Dart!

Jason Digby is a dentist in Mississippi, so it’s only fitting that his insane leaf spring Dodge Dart is named Tooth Jerker. With a massive single turbo bolted to the front of the Peter Harrell-tuned big block, Tooth Jerker is the quickest leaf spring suspension car on the planet, having been a best of 4.13 at 183 MPH.

Last weekend, Digby and his driver, Lyle Barnett, made the trip down to South Georgia Motorsports Park for Donald “Duck” Long’s Lights Out X, the biggest radial race on the planet, where they were hoping to lower their own record and possibly even take a shot at the Limited Drag Radial record of 4.09 held by Justin Martin and his gorgeous orange Nova.

Motion Raceworks, one of the biggest supporters of the team, strapped a GoPro in the car to catch what all Barnett deals with on a typical pass down the 1/8th mile, and as you’d expect, a car on antique leaf springs doesn’t exactly go straight down the track. Of course, Barnett has a ton of experience behind the wheel of this and several other cars, so he’s right at home cranking the wheel to keep the car in the groove and hunting for the finish line.

After building RPM’s to get the monster turbo spooled up, Lyle bumps into the staging beams. A split second later, the tree falls and Barnett releases the transbrake, sending Tooth Jerker hurling toward the finish line in 4.14 seconds at 187 MPH, a big jump in MPH over the record pass and proof that the car has more power on tap now than it did back in Bowling Green last April when the record was set.

Barnett, who was able to read the scoreboard as he passed, is elated at the performance, celebrating the big number before the car even came to a stop.

The team would not best their record at Lights Out, but look for them to keep taking shots at the benchmark each time the car comes out.