‘Carolina Kid’ Travis Harvey is Two for Two in 2015 Big Dog Competition

The season finally arrived for the 2015 edition of the Big Dog Shootout, this season sponsored by ATI Performance Products. With many changes taking place over the off season, fewer cars have attended the first two events, leaving the always popular Thursday night race to just 8 car fields for April and May. But upcoming combo events with the EOPM association should more than double the number of cars in competition. This leaves Travis Harvey and Chris Cline to enjoy a brief time of having the event, and the prize money to divide between these two cars. Even with the rules open to turbo cars, these two are one nitrous, one blower car. We realize that the Nitrous cars are replacing pistons at an alarming rate, but, come on guys, give these two some competition.

That said, the field for May shaped up as follows: Travis Harvey qualified No. 1 with a 3.87, followed by Chris Cline’s “Christine” at 3.94. These were the only two cars in the 3’s, with Jeff Blasi at 4.04 and Doug Winters’s Chevelle at 4.10. The field was rounded out by Tony Wilson, Zachary Houser, Dave Leonardo and Chris Croom in Ernie Everett’s beautiful ’69 Camaro.

First round had Tony Wilson advancing, along with Chris Cline and Travis Harvey’s Boone Motorsports Camaro. Harvey used the round to lay down low ET and Top MPH with a 3.77/200.93 mph blast to defeat Croom. Last month’s finalists returned to the money round when Cline ran a 4.12 and Harvey a 4.89 alongside a red-lighting Tony Wilson in the semifinals.

In the final, Travis’ Jimmy and Brad Boone-owned Camaro ran a 3.79 at 198.76 mph over Cline’s out of shape 4.68. As in April, Travis and Chris are one and two, then one and two in points as of this event.

The Renegade eliminator, sponsored by Super Clean, had eight cars as well, but competition was much closer. The class of the field was the Pontiac of engine builder Brett Nesbitt at a 4.09 ET for the pole position, with Tim Lawrence, Wayne Hawkins, Brian Schrader, Charles Richards, Jr., Cam Clark, Larry Pearce and John Lassiter making up the field. During eliminations, Nesbitt ran a 4.081 for low ET of the event to set up a final run of 4.09 over Lawrence’s 4.14 for the runner-up.

Other winners were Chris Dean in 6.00 Raiders and Kyle Shipmon. Not to be outdone by the “Carolina Kid”, Shipmon made it two in a row, winning 7.49 Real Street.

Also in attendance was Todd Tutterow in his Pro Extreme entry running a little test and tune. The GALOT Motorsports car promptly made a shambles of both ends of the ET and MPH numbers for the track while running a 3.610 ET at 212.76 MPH.

Last, but certainly not least, it was great to see and hear Alvin Dildine back behind the microphone doing the announcing. As we all know, track officials, fans, and competitors alike are still hurting over the loss of our announcer, Darin McClaugherly, belovedly known simply as “MoDee”.

This story was originally published on May 20, 2015.