Drag Illustrated Issue 118, February 2017 | Page 36

Dirt
Battle of the States
Inaugural All State Challenge
will decide which state is home
to bracket racing’s best
By Lisa Collier
F
or the last eight years, Britt
Cummings and Gaylon Rolison have
put on the Great American $50,000
Bracket Race at Memphis International
Raceway. The event has been solid in its tenure,
garnering top bracket racers from around the
country to compete for the high-dollar payout
and enjoy the Great American extras like the
golf cart race and racer party. But this year, the
event is going to knock out an American homerun.
For the ninth running of the Great American
Bracket Race, Cummings and Rolison are insti-
tuting an unprecedented event in which the most
notable racers from each state form teams to
ultimately determine which state is home to the
best racers in the country. Each team is comprised
of seven drivers, each chosen for a respective
category: top bulb dragster, top bulb door car,
bottom bulb, heads-up index, Stock/Super Stock,
a utility driver (someone that can perform well in
any of the above) and a female driver. The race
already has 31 states represented.
“We can’t take credit for the idea,” admitted
Cummings. “Luke Bogacki and Jared Pennington
had the idea for which state has the best drivers
on the podcast they do and had a hypothetical
race. From the word ‘go’ when I heard that the
first week, I said, ‘Someone should and probably
will have a race like this.’ It created a lot of hype.
I started figuring out dates to have a race like
this. Gaylon and I quickly decided to add it to
the Great American 50.
“To make it relevant, we wanted to make sure
the winningest names in racing would be there
– Dan Fletcher, Peter Biondo, Anthony Bertozzi,
Jeff Verdi. We picked team captains, but the team
captains pick the rest of the team from their state.
The first call I made was to Dan Fletcher. He was
very excited about it and he was in.”
The All State Challenge was born and, seem-
ingly overnight, created a social media sensation.
“We’ve changed the whole spectrum of the race,”
Rolison added. “We essentially are bringing in
some of the elite, top names in sportsman rac-
ing to compete in the All
State Challenge. When
we chose these captains,
they went and picked
the crème de la crème of
racers. I’m interested to
see how it all goes down
as these racers line up
against each other round
after round and see who’s
left standing. There won’t
be any ‘gimme’ rounds.
You’ll have to earn ev-
ery round.”
Before Bogacki and
Pennington’s podcast race
was complete, Cummings
and Rolison announced
that the finalists of the
hypothetical race would
automatically be en-
tered into the All State
Challenge and whoever
submitted the team
would become the team
captains. Alabama won
with the team submit-
ted by Jared Pennington.
Cody Harger submitted
the team for Louisiana,
which lost in the final.
Bogacki will also see his
brain child come to frui-
tion as the All State Chal-
lenge Team Captain for
Illinois.
“I want to thank Luke
Bogacki and Jared Pen-
nington, because it was
their idea first,” said Ro-
lison, who also promotes
the longest running
bracket series in the Deep South, King of the
Coast at Gulfport Dragway. “They gave us their
blessing for us to make it a reality. It would be a
failure on my part for not thanking those guys.
“Two successive piston-making mistakes on a 427 engine cost me $3,000 not including
my labor. The first destroyed every wrist pin in the engine; the second pitched a rod off the
crank—I was lucky not to wreck the motor. Though Gibtec rid me of the bitter experience, it
was a grim lesson that brought me to their door. But their product and service saved me.”
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36 | D r a g
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