South Georgia Motorsports Park presented the Southern Nostalgia Festival and Night of Fire. The event combined a nostalgia drag race, nostalgia circle track race, Saturday night cackle event, car show, and swap meet. It even included a Halloween costume contest for the kids, and a jet truck to light up the night. The Southern Slingshots put on a great exhibition. Memory Lane included the restored funny cars of 1974 NHRA World Champion Shirl Greer and the 1970 Camaro of Huston Platt. Bunky Bobo brought the National Hot Rod Reunion Memory Lane award-winning Hemi Hurricane Willys. Denny Fenstermaker displayed his restored Roger Gates Top Fuel dragster from California. There was a Bantam A/C, a 1961 Dragmaster car, a 1963 Ford light weight, and a 1962 Pontiac super stocker. A great time was had by all, and even bigger plans are in the works for 2009.
A number of classes were contested at the event, and all were run on the eighth mile. Perhaps the wildest was Nostalgia Super Eliminator. The qualified eight car field included the nitro nostalgia funny cars of John Smith and Richard Hartman, Jim Dickey's blown altered, Samantha Neild's injected altered, Don Roddy's blown Pro Mod 57 Thunderbird, the nitrous pro mods of Clarence Cloud (Willys), Greg Cason (68 Camaro), and Dan Parker (63 Vette). Don Roddy qualified number one with a 4.05 at 178 in the blown Thunderbird. In round one, John Smith in his funny car narrowly defeated Clarence Cloud's Willys Pro Mod, 4.21 to 4.29. Jim Dickey ran a nice 4.07 to beat Greg Cason's Camaro. Richard Hartman took is 55 Chevy-bodied funny car to a 4.15 win over Samantha Neild's altered. Number eight qualifier Dan Parker won when Don Roddy fouled away a much better 4.29. In the semifinals, Hartman ran low et and top speed at 3.94 188.96 to defeat Dickey's tough altered. Dickey ran a career best 4.007 at 180.62 in his losing effort. In the other pairing, Dan Parker took a starting line advantage over John Smith's funny car and held on for the win as both cars had problems. Parker's 4.39 beat Smith's 4.54. In the finals, Dan Parker singled when Richard Hartman shut off his car before the burnout.
In a small field of Top/Open Fuel cars, the finals saw Adam Douglas of Lake Worth, FL defeat the broken car of Bob Brodley. Douglas singled to a wheelstanding 4.74 at 153.
The Flathead/Inliner Class final pitted Jim Blackshear in his roadster against Larry McLendon's flathead dragster. In a double breakout race, Blackshear won with an 8.16 on his 8.18 dial to defeat McLendon who ran 7.85 on his 8.08 dial.
A great field of Gassers turned out. National Hot Rod Reunion regulars Larry McLendon, Roger McConnell, Steve Fountain, Bob Wheeler, and Bob Wold faced off against other southern cars in a seventeen car field. In the Finals, James Williams' Camaro defeated Dallen Stutts' 57 Chevy.
In Hot Rod Pro Eliminator, 41 cars battled for the title. In the finals, Kenny Bevins in his Vega defeated Beau Gay when Gay broke out by .005. Kelly King won Nostalgia Open Comp in his Vega wagon.
