Veteran automotive journalist Jim McCraw reports on the scene last weekend at the Ohio Mile, where straight-line speed is king. 

 

 

Hot Times and Fast Cars in Ohio
Story and Photos by Jim McCraw

 

They call it the Ohio Mile.  It’s a converted airport runway 9000 feet long in Wilmington, Ohio that has evolved from Air Force base to DHL air freight terminal to race track. The action is sanctioned by the East Coast Timing Association, which formerly raced on an old Air Force base in Maxton, North Carolina. After 16 seasons at Maxton, in 2012 the action was relocated the giant runway in Wilmington.

At the Ohio Mile, there’s a one-mile standing start to the timing traps, with 4000 feet left over to stop, and an ECTA class for just about any kind of motorized vehicle. And that’s what shows up at the meets in May, June, July and September each year:  Everything from former NASCAR Sprint Cup cars, which are easy to convert for top speed racing and cheap to buy, all the way down to small-engined motorcycles, with lakesters, roadsters, hot rods, rat rods and streamliners thrown in for flavor.

It costs only $15 to spectate, and this year, on a perfectly beautiful Ohio spring weekend, thousands of spectators lined the runway to watch the cars fly by at speeds well over 200 mph.  We went for the first time this year, and we loved it.  It ain’t Bonneville, but it’s close, it’s paved and it’s fast.

 

Alan Burns’ XF/VOT Salt Slider, a flathead-powered Vintage Oval Track roadster, is a brand new car with an unusual header arrangement that had spectators scratching their heads.

 

This blown small-block Chevy-powered Ford pickup truck, replete with giant exhaust stacks and built in the style of a rat rod, was not entered, but rather was the service vehicle for a motorcycle that WAS entered.  That’s how crazy it is at the Ohio Mile.

 

Dan Tackett’s Unblown Fuel Modified Sports entry, Silver Bullet, combines the nose of a streamliner with the tail end of a 1953 Corvette.  Tackett holds a record at 172 mph.

 

Wayne Jesel checks one last thing before his Dodge Intrepid heads down the track.  The Jesel Brothers come here every year and set records every year with multiple drivers, hitting speeds over 227 mph in the mile.

 

Another retired NASCAR car was entered by Ron and Bob Keselowski, father and uncle of current Sprint Cup star Brad Keselowski, a Dodge that holds a record here at 213 mph.

 

Yes, that’s a Cadillac Coupe deVille, Sean Mote’s Blown Gas Super Street entry from Finger Tight Racing, low to the ground and loud as the end of the Earth.  It has gone 197 mph.

 

Rusty brown pickup rat rods were a heavy presence in Wilmington. This one from Aaron Brown and The Garage Shop from North Carolina, competed in C/Gas Real Street.

 

Somehow, a 1962 Ford Falcon Ranchero ends up in F/Classic Unblown Gas Coupe.  The Calaguiro Brothers hot rod comes out of Hamilton, Ontario, and competes regularly in lots of different classes using Ford 4-cylinder engines with and without superchaging.  It’s gone over 145 mph.

 

Looking very much like a Bonneville car is the Kris Henderson AA/Unblown Gas Modified Roadster, a Ford Model T roadster body stretched out over a long, long wheelbase and fitted with traditional Moon disc hubcaps. His record stands at exactly 200 mph.

 

This needle-nosed streamliner, so long it wouldn’t fit in one camera frame, is made of carbon fiber, with a chopped cab that looks like it came from a Fiat Topolino or an Austin Bantam, but it’s all carbon fiber as well.  It broke on its only outing and turned violently to the right.

 

The Geezer 2 Pontiac Firebird was used to set records by a father and two sons, Trevor, Brian and Kyle Action, all three over 200 mph, and the youngest son only 16 years old!

 

If there was a trophy for Electronics Nightmare at the Ohio Mile event, this turbocharged motorcycle would have taken it home.  There were hundreds of bikes on hand for the weekend, many of them big-engined Suzukis.

 

The democratic, run-whatcha-brung nature of the East Coast Timing Association class structure allows for almost anything, incuding a two-stroke moped turned into a sidecar rig with a few feet of tubing and some diamond plate, its 50cc engine equipped with nitrous oxide for more power.

 

A plan came together for the Tutterrow Brothers racing team and their ’33 classic Ford D/Unblown Gas Competition sedan, since all three brothers, Jim, Doug and Joe, and their pal Dave Jackson, were all registered to drive the car during the weekend. Jim has a record at 143 mph.

 

Gerald Davenport brought this creation, which looks like a cross between a Crosley Hotshot and a Bugeye Sprite, The Witness,to compet in Unblown Fuel Modified Sports.  Romans 10:10 refers to a Bible verse.  The car has gone over 121 mph.

 

Bob Sirna brought his 1955 Mercedes-Benz Gullwing with its Pro Stock hood scoop down from Michigan for a coupe of shakedown passes before taking the car to Bonneville, and ran 125 mph with ease.