Hulk Wins Second Straight for Team McBride

With the coaching of five-time Top Fuel champion Larry McBride, Jimmy “Hulk” Brantley garnered his second straight AMA/Prostar event victory at the Schnitz Memphis Blues Nationals, Oct 1-2, while dazzling the crowd with a stunning elapsed-time of 6.01.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” Brantley said of his third career win. “I’m very lucky to be on this team. Without Larry and this crew I wouldn’t be able to race.”

“Jimmy constantly impresses me at how great of a job he is doing riding this bike,” McBride said. “Our whole crew with my brother Steve, Roland Stuart, and Patrick O’Daniels put in 110 percent tuning this thing.”

On Friday Brantley posted an impressive 6.09 while dropping a cylinder approximately 900 feet into the run. The run left no doubt that the motorcycle possessed five-second capability at this particular track.

“This bike has done some amazing things, things my bike hasn’t even done,” McBride said. “We’ve still had some minor problems all year with the bike dropping cylinders and whatnot, but once we get the bugs worked out it has an amazing potential.”

Brantley secured the pole-position with a stellar 6.016 at 234 mph, nearly becoming the second man in history to join the exclusive MTC Five Second Club.

On race day Brantley defeated the Turbo Harley of Tommy Sloan who broke on the line and was not able to stage the motorcycle. Brantley left prematurely and did not receive an elapsed time, but based on what Prostar called “The John Force rule”, he was awarded the win because Sloan had already conceded the victory and didn’t stage. Brantley’s on-board computer indicated that the run would have been a 6.0. It also showed that Brantley chopped the throttle about 5 seconds into the run.

“I knew I had a bye run so I accidentally hit the throttle a little too early,” Brantley said. “I didn’t even know it happened until they told me.”

“I wasn’t even aware of the John Force rule,” McBride said. “I think it was a good call by Prostar. Nobody wanted to see a bye run in the final.”

In one of the quickest side-by-side dragbike races ever Brantley defeated veteran Chris Hand in the final with a blast of 6.04 to Hand’s 6.11.

“It was a much hyped up race. It was really exciting,” Brantley said. “He got me out of the hole just a bit but I passed him before the 330 and never saw him again. I got a little out of the groove and shut off the throttle 5.81 seconds into the run”

Brantley now takes a commanding lead in the points series to the AMA/Prostar World Finals in Gainesville, FL Nov. 11th-13th.

“Even though I can’t be out here racing, to have Jimmy win this number one plate and give our team a sixth straight championship gets me very excited,” McBride said. “We all want to go to Vegas. It means so much to me to still be involved.”

The Team thanked; Pingel Enterprise, Trim-Tex Drywall Products, Drag Specialties-Parts Unlimited, Red Line Synthetic Oil Corporation as well as his other sponsors:

Vance & Hines Motorsports, Muzzys Performance, Web-Cam, Kibblewhite Precision Machine, Vanson Leathers, Performance Machine, Belt Drives Ltd, Street & Competition, Trac Dynamics, Simpson Race Products, Nitrous Express, APE, EK Chain, Arias Pistons, R&D Spring Corp, Autolite, MSD, Protect ALL, Whipple Industries, Cometic Gaskets, B&J Transmission, Carolina Cycle, L.A. Sleeve, PJ1 Nology Engineering, Mickey Thompson Tires, Corbin Seats, Stark Masonry, and Valco.