The first of three $50,000-to-win purses at the JEGS Summer Fling presented by OPTIMA Batteries at Bristol Dragway saw 300 entries duke it out on ATI Performance Products Thursday, wracking up multiple perfect runs only a few days into the weeklong event.
In a nod to the upcoming Door Car Fling in 2025, the Fling Team organized an all-door car shootout of 16 racers. Howard Westbury, Jeff Verdi, Doug Moles, and Shannon Waycaster made up the four remaining cars, but it was Westbury and Moles who moved on to the final round. By way of Moles’ redlight, Westbury collected the $3,000 up for grabs.
The ladder was set at seven including Josh Luedke, Tony Morris, Jon Corbin, Shawn Carpenter, Tommy Plott, Anthony Bertozzi, and Matt Dadas. Luedke took one-thousandth at the stripe over Morris to advance, while Carpenter was .008 taking .007 to knock out the ‘68 Firebird of Corbin. Bertozzi drilled the tree with a perfect bulb against the four-thousandths redlight of Plott. Dadas let go .003 on a solo trip down the track.
Despite having the advantage at the hit, Dadas bowed out of competition by way of an eight-thousandths breakout against Carpenter. On the other side of the semifinals, Luedke took .003 needing to take .002 or less to break out by just one-thousandth to the .015 package of Bertozzi.
A pair of door cars lined up in the final round both searching for their first Fling big check, but it was all over on the starting line when Bertozzi clicked it two-thousandths red to the .009 of Carpenter who cruised his ‘68 Camaro down towards the ATI Performance Products $50,000 Thursday winlight.
Race fans can tune in on Friday for Fuel Tech $50,000 eliminations at 8:15 a.m. Everything will be streamed live from @RaceTheFlings on YouTube where our in-house camera crew is slated to deliver another high-quality broadcast with live timing, starting line camera, exclusive interviews, and more in partnership with Strange Engineering.
For more information, visit www.BracketRaces.com, the Spring Fling Bracket Races Facebook page, watch live @RaceTheFlings on YouTube, or text the word BRISTOL to (374) 974-7007 for race updates.
This story was originally published on September 6, 2024. 
