2009 NMRA/NMCA All Star Nationals - Carolina Fire

Pure Street
Ryan Hecox had his Rich Groh Racing-powered Pure Streeter on point all weekend at zMax. Ryan qualified No. 1 by the skin of his teeth over Mark Anderson, but he made a swap to Holley SysteMAX cylinder heads to see if they would improve performance. Ryan does a lot of testing back home in Maryland, and it paid off as he was able to get past Brandon Alsept thanks to a Holeshot victory. Then Ryan was able to get past Teddy Weaver in the semis. Ryan saved another stellar pass for Mark Anderson in the final with a 10.27 at 131 mph to take the win.

Something's always going on in the MV Performance pits. Tim Matherly and the crew is always busy fixing or replacing something at the track. Tim's usually good for swapping engines at a few races a year, but the crew was busier working on Jim Breese's and Dave Ginter's cars at zMax. Even in the heat, Tim's combo was still good for 9.50s during qualifying, but he lost grip in Round 2 against Paul Wiley, which allowed Paul to get the round win.

Mark Anderson qualified in the second spot at zMax, which meant he would be on the opposite side of the ladder from Ryan Hecox. As such, Mark took care of his business to make it to another final round, and again it was with Ryan in the opposite lane. It seemed Mark's shifting woes from Milan were a thing of the past, but he didn't have enough in the final to get the win.

Dave Ginter had all kinds of problems at zMax. Dave tech'd in the car, then came back to the pits and took out the engine to swap on the new Trick Flow Twisted Wedge Two-Valve heads. Dave and the crew were able to get that done, but the increased power threw off his program. He was happy to have a clean pass, but an off-pace 10.14 against Paul Wiley in Round 1 wasn't enough to move on to Round 2.