The Quest to 'Make the Cut': The Fierce Competition of Street Machine Eliminator!
Street Machine Eliminator is the largest class in Hot Rod Drag Week. For some racers, it is the “catch all” class with many racers making their first passes in this class. For others, it is the go-to class because of the Heads-Up Elimination Bracket Race at the end. This class is also the only way to race heads-up at Hot Rod Drag Week, and hosts a Top 32 Bracket Race to end the week. The class racers with the Top 32 Average ETs are allowed to race for a single winner at the end of Day Five before the awards.
The class was changed from Daily Driver for Drag Week 2015. From 2005-2014, the Daily Driver Class had a Class Limited 10.80 ET. The name change also lowered the ET minimum to 10.00.
In the last 10 years, with nine events ran, 1121 racers have competed in the SME Class! The largest year being 2024, with 152 racers! With 136 racers in 2018 and 135 racers in 2022 to round out the top three years. 2015 was the smallest count with 106 cars.
One huge stat that stood out was the ET needed to make the Top 32 over the years! In the early years (2015-2017), you only needed an 11 second average to make the cut. But by 2018, you needed a 10.75 (Blake Fondren) to get into the race. The bump spot has hovered in the “high 10s” since Blake’s 2018 Average. The lowest “bump spot” has been Chuck Jordan’s 10.7355 in 2022. Here is a look at the Quickest Average and Bump Spot from 2015, 2019 and 2024.
Hot Rod Drag Week 2015 - First Year of the Class
Quickest Average - Addie Ross in ‘63 Falcon - 10.0762
#32 Donald Palka in a ‘67 Camaro - 11.5772
Hot Rod Drag Week 2019
Quickest Average - Jacki Steinke in ‘94 Mustang - 10.0410
#32 Tom Bretz in ‘18 Mustang - 10.853
Hot Rod Drag Week 2024
Quickest Average - Azeem Sheikh in ‘73 Camaro - 10.0605
#32 Josie Kirker in ‘57 Chevy - 10.984
With a 10.00 Minimum ET, the racers chasing that #1 Seed in the Bracket Race have chopped the Average down to just 10.0303 after five days of racing!
Quickest Average in Street Machine Eliminator History
#1 Mike Rymarz - 10.0303 - 2023
#2 Jared Ball - 10.0336 - 2018
#3 Bill Spangler - 10.0349 - 2021
#4 Jacki Steinke - 10.0410 - 2019
#5 Mike Rymarz - 10.0488 - 2022
#6 Matt Lang - 10.0568 - 2021
#7 Azeem Sheikh - 10.0605 - 2024
#8 Mike Reichen - 10.0658 - 2018
#9 Addie Ross - 10.0726 - 2015
#10 Brian Keiser - 10.0727 - 2021
“Make the Cut”
From the conversations we have had with racers, the goal is to simply “make the cut” for the 32 grouping so you can run out the bracket race. Does that play into the lack of Perfect Passes in the class?
Street Machine Eliminator has never been an index class, but it has proven to be a very tight class of racing. And we’re certain it laid the groundwork for the index classes that Rocky Mountain Race Week hosts. Matt and June showed that index classes can work extremely well in drag and drive. Their classes range from 9.00 through 14.00 and are always highly contested! In the next article, we will dive into the history and data that surrounds the RMRW Index Classes.
Perfect 10.000 Pass
Only two racers in Street Machine Eliminator History have ran to the 10.00 Limited ET! Ryan Frizzell in his turbo Trans Am and Bill Spangler in his naturally aspirated Fairmont, both runs in 2019!
Ryan Frizzell - Day Two in 2019
Bill Spangler - Day Three in 2019
Four Closest to a Perfect Pass
Mike Rymarz - 10.001 - 2023
Jacki Steinke - 10.002 - 2019
Martin Villeneuve - 10.002 - 2022
Paul Lewellyn - 10.002 - 2022
The Street Machine Eliminator class is full of unique racers and cars! The list of racers is huge and we will continue to dive in to the stories and stats from the class over the years. One thing is for certain, with more than 1100 racers over 10 years, and the only way to race Heads-Up at Hot Rod Drag Week, we expect this class to continue to provide a great way to experience Hot Rod Drag Week in a quick street car!
Thank you to Billy Gebhart and Tonya Turk
I want to thank a very important man and family. Billy Gebhart (MoparBilly) began tracking and documenting stats and stories from each Drag Week wayyyyyy back on automotive forums. You have to dig now but you can find posts made as early as 2008. He goes into detail on the different types of cars and the records that were set. I hope to be carrying on that tradition in today’s times through stories like these, the weekly Live Streams we do and the videos we produce from events we attend. I know he would be proud of the community and would be enjoying the amount of events and racers that are competing in today’s drag and drive community.
I also want to give a huge shoutout to Tonya Turk and her team for creating the process we all use today for time slip collection and scoring. Without her knowledge and organization, none of this would have happened. More events should look to her process and structure for ease of input. This would save 100s of hours each year for me and my team and would result in more, and better, historical data that will be important to everyone in the future.
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Photos from Drag Drive Repeat and racer’s Facebook profile.
