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| DEVIL’S DUEL HONORS DIVIDED FOR SECOND STRAIGHT YEAR WILEY FORD, WV – The end result of the second Devil’s Duel Cobra Corvette Shoot Out may have been similar to 2006, but Cumberland Airport’s annual blue oval bow tie bash was far from an instant replay. Both sides of the OK Corral were sporting new guns and new trigger men to use them. The Capital Area Cobra Club came loaded for bear, sporting a convoy of contenders to push veterans Wade Chamberlain and Travis Grabb. Rising stars Fred Kelley, Larry Casey, Tink Phillips, Al Schmidt, Hil O’Hirlehy and Ben Lambiotte comprised CACC’s top eight in the three run team cup qualifier. Virginians Herb Smith and John Hubbell were only a couple tenths south of the eight car cut-off. Chamberlain, Kelley and Casey grabbed the top three raw times in the qualifier. Over the bow tie side of the corral, new faces also abounded. Steel Town vets Dan Walters, Keith Ritter, Mike McCagh, Steve Hotchkiss and captain Bill Nyga were joined by some very fast recruits (or ringers depending on who you ask). Steel Town supporter Jim Harris from Northern Virginia was joined by local Corvette drivers Gary Miller and Eric Barnett. From north of the Mason Dixon, Ron Dotts, David Mohar and Mark and Claudia Stouffer came to the aid of the GM gang. The ZO6s of Harris, Miller and Mark Stouffer gained raw time slots four through six in the club qualifier. Barnett, Mohar, Hotchkiss, Dotts, Walters and Nyga rounded out the Top Eight. CLUB RESULTS By way of “Pinks” style negotiation the Devil’s Duel club cup (more like a bowl, actually), the Cobra Corvette club title was decided by cumulative PAX times among the top eight Cobra and Corvette drivers. That win went to the Corvette clan by a whopping ten seconds. But there’s info on the table that says next year should be heads-up on the motor…not the least of which is that our Corvettes also would have won a heads-up competition by roughly one second. Cumberland’s National Road Autosport autocross shoot-outs seem to be shedding some light on the relative performance of America’s favorite basement self-build cars and the country’s fastest road racing production car, the Corvette ZO6. The top six raw time cars in the Devil’s Dual shootout, three Cobras and three ZO6s, were separated by only 1.182 seconds. As the King Of The Hill results below support, the fastest kit Cobras now running at Cumberland are about 1 to 1.5 seconds faster than the box stock C5/C6 Corvette ZO6. Given the march of time and modern engineering, it can safely be said that today’s best Cobra kits also exceed the performance window of the legendary car on which they are based. At the www.capitalareacobraclub.com forum under “Everything Else” there is a very interesting post from OG Racing’s Brian Hare. Brian shares his driving impressions of Wade and Fred’s cars at Cumberland and speaks a bit to the issue that not even all Cobra kits are created equal. In a nutshell, the modern Cobra kit is a broad and flexible canvas on which an owner/driver has the choice create an awesome competition beast that need not take a back seat to Detroit’s current crop of performance sports cars. SHOOT OUT BRACKET Cross seeded NCAA style in a Round of 16 based on the top eight PAX results from the club cup round, the Devil’s Duel shoot out did not disappoint. Cobras swept the first round left side of the draw. Only Fred Kelley’s win over Eric Barnett on the right side of the draw prevented a Corvette sweep of that side. In the Elite 8, Chamberlain and Casey ousted Grabb and Schmidt. On the other side, Jim Harris nipped fellow Vette driver Steve Hotchkiss and Mark Stouffer’s ability to drive his ZO6 consistently in the low 45’s took care of Kelley by 3/10th of a second. Chamberlain and Harris both ripped off 44 second runs in the Final Four to make the finals, where Chamberlain erased his memory of last year’s coned loss to Travis Grabb and won the King of the Hill title by running 44.660 to Harris’ 46.058. So, until this time next year, the Devil’s Duel still stands as tall as kissing your sister in terms of bragging rights. This unfinished business continues into 2008! PDF RESULTS DOWNLOADS Club Qualifier Raw Time Results Club Qualifier PAX Time Results Club Qualifier All Runs Shoot Out Bracket Results |
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