In easily the greatest outing of his young career, Cory “the Caveman” Reed qualified No. 1 for the lucrative PRO Superstar Shootout and slapped around some of the biggest names in the business before losing the Pro Stock final to Troy Coughlin Jr. on a red-light start.
“You’re fully staged, you know you’re gonna outrun the other guy, and just for a split-second you think, ‘OK, no .100 lights here,’ ” said Reed, who’d been rock-solid on the Tree all day: .017, .019, and .021. “Your foot gets a little light on the clutch, you start floating the pedal because you don’t want to lose on a holeshot, and then the light comes up red and you’re like, ‘Why did that have to go through my mind right then?’ “
A 7.49 actually would have been enough – Coughlin’s car practically shook itself apart in the first 100 feet after his Elite team swung for the fences against Reed’s dominant KB/Titan-powered J&A Service Camaro. The night before, Reed had recorded his first 6.40 ever, a shocking 6.494, for his first pole in either Pro Stock or Pro Stock Motorcycle. “I never used to care about qualifying No. 1 – probably because it was never gonna happen anyway,” he said. “Now, I’m not going be happy if we’re not top 3.”
At the Shootout, which uses a chip draw to determine pairings, the only advantage Reed gained by outrunning everybody in qualifying was lane choice for his first-round matchup with Mason McGaha, whom he summarily dispatched, 6.54/209 to 6.59/206. Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Greg Stanfield, two of the more accomplished drivers in both professional and sportsman racing history, were the next to fall.
Coughlin suffered his first crash in more than 30 years of racing in the second round, gyrating wildly left and right before plowing into the wall while Reed, who had him covered anyway, advanced with a 6.56/209. In the semi’s, Greg Stanfield, father of perennial contender Aaron Stanfield, took a much more conventional loss, cutting a decent .036 light and running a respectable 6.58/208 that weren’t enough against Reed’s superior .021 reaction time and faster 6.56/209.
In the final, on the cusp of his first major drag racing victory, Reed left first, as he had all day, but came up with a disappointing -.017 foul, denying him the biggest purse in Pro Stock history: $125,000. “Hey, another .017 light,” he joked. “Negative .017. All it would’ve taken was another teen or .020 because the car was gonna run another .49, but this was still the best weekend I’ve ever had. Hitting the Tree, hitting shift points, the way the car ran overall – this was it, right here. If we keep running like this, we’ll win a race this year.”
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