For the second straight year and the sixth time in HOT ROD Drag Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive history, Tom Bailey has been crowned with America’s Fastest Street Car title by capturing the Overall win, in addition to winning the Unlimited category. His impressive accomplishments put him at the top of the list for the most Overall wins, a title he shared with Larry Larson for one year.
Bailey completed the week by posting a 6.7149 average over the five-day, nearly 1,000-mile road trip, visiting tracks in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The pathway to the HOT ROD Drag Week victory was one filled with plenty of bumps in the road, figuratively and literally. Bailey’s pre-event testing could’ve gone better, the first problem being a pair of exhaust valves breaking three days before he planned to get on the road to South Carolina. The repairs were easy, and he got back on track on Thursday so he could knock the dust off his beloved Sick Seconds 1.0. That is when a larger problem reared its ugly head. The Chevy engine spun a few rod bearings, a normal maintenance item that Bailey admitted they should’ve changed but didn’t.
It took 24 hours to get the engine repaired and installed in Sick Seconds 1.0, the 1969 Chevy Camaro that Bailey drove to win his first Drag Week back in 2013. In fact, it is the 10th anniversary of that win, the reason Bailey put this car back in service. He last ran this Camaro at a Mid-West Drags event in 2020 and at Roadkill Nights. The team hit the road to Darlington Dragway a few hours later than planned, but rolled in Sunday morning with plenty of time to make tech.
The opening day of competition turned out to be a race against the track surface. Bailey aborted a few runs before getting it together late in the day. The twin-turbocharged Camaro blasted off to a 6.75 at 203
