With more local entrants making the scene at the Third Peake’s Pike Challenge, competition was tight to see who would finish as top dragster in the respective divisions.

Emil Bassita, driving his alcohol-injected 454 Chevy, did well in the preliminaries of the A class with some impressive victories in the flat drag. But his vehicle, “King Kritter”, broke down and “Soda Pop” then came through to win the event. Emil is president of the “Boondock Blazers 4-Wheel Drive Assn.” and makes the jaunt all the way from Edison, N.J., to participate in the races.

Tom Bose of Youngsville and Bruce Minckler of Callicoon also raced in the drags, and both vehicles won races. Tom’s girlfriend, Debbie Neuman, won in the powder puff division, and Tom came in second in his race behind Gene Bossert of Youngsville. Gene and Tom are neighbors and have been racing each other at 4-wheel drive competitions all over the state.

Bruce’s brother, John, drove Bruce’s Chevy pickup to victory in the flat drags, winning by three car lengths.

Racing in bright sunshine for most of the competition, the racers had to battle dust storms which arose from the racers who proceeded them. The crowd would sometimes get a dust cloud blown their way by the wind and have to endure the same pleasures (?) as the drivers.

Al Werlau of Briscoe raced his dump truck in the obstacle course losing by only seconds in one of the most exciting races of the whole weekend.

Mac Crawson of Long Eddy raced his Toyota to first place in the flat drags, and Carol Peake also won the flat drags to give Long Eddy a perfect record.

This event had a few less entrants than last time but the rise in local area entrants made the races more exciting and gave area drivers a chance to see how well they could fare once they got out on the track.