• Home
• Road Racing
  • 1972 Vintage Corvette
  • GTO / GT1 Riggins Olds
  • 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona
  • '83 IROC Camaro
  • '68-81 GT1 Corvette
• Drag Racing
  • '59 Anglia Gasser
  • '85 Olds Cutlass 442
• Street Cars
  • '71 Corvette Resto/mod
  • Our Past Cars
• Motor-cycles
  • '66 Honda 305 Scrambler
  • '74 Kawasaki H2 750 Triple
  • TSS Pursang Road Racer
  • '04 Hayabusa

PINKS All Out...

April, 18-19, 2008 Gainesville Raceway - Gainesville, FL

Friday - 04/18/2008

PINKS All Out, the popular spin-off program of hit reality series, PINKS, invites up to 450 grass roots drag racers to qualify for a shot at the final PINKS All Out 16. Competitors race for the lion's share of an $18,000 overall purse ($10,000 to win) and a new NAPA tool chest.

Hosted by creator and executive producer Rich Christensen and produced by Pullin Television out of Los Angeles, the television show rigors its on-air technical advisors (brothers Nate and Adam Pritchett) to select a field of 16 cars based upon a subjective elapsed-time grouping determined through two time-trial sessions.

Mark and several of his friends registered for the event and went to Gainesville Raceway for the Friday test and tune day. Most of the day was taken up with registering as there were 408 entries.

Around 4:00 pm Mark went to the line for his test run. His burnout went fine, but when the light turned green, the 1985 Olds Cutlass Supreme backfired and quit. NOT good. Mark re-fired it and made his run. It was a 12.596, an okay run but not what he had hoped for. At least these runs did not count towards the PINKS selection process.

It was back to the trailer to work on the car.

After some "research", we replaced the spark plugs and thought we had it fixed. It was getting dark, so we took his daughter, Katlynn back home with us for the night. Mark & Casey Miller were staying in the trailer.

Saturday - 04/19/2008

Saturday morning we arrived back at the track. All of the Pinks cast and crew were busy with cameras and checking out the cars in the paddock area. Runs were conducted in groups, based on your entry number. Mark's number was upper 300's, so his first run was not until 1:00 pm...the last run before lunch. I thought it was a good run at 12.270. Mark said the car still hesitated and that it could have been better.

The second set of runs began after a short lunch break. There were no times posted, so it was difficult to gage the competitors. The PINKS crew were looking for two, all-out, consistent runs. They were looking for 16 cars would be competitive. There were some REALLY fast cars at the track, but not 16 with close times.

Mark's second run was about 6:00 pm. He did a really great burnout that had the crowd cheering. Then something happened down the track with the car that ran before him. So he backed the car up and sat for quite a while before the track was clear.

He did another burnout and got the point from Rich Christensen. It was a good run, probably better than the earlier one, but without a time slip, who knows?

The wait was on for the Final 16 announcement.

It came as no surprise that Mark didn't make it into the Final 16, but it was a surprise that the group that they pick were running about 11:55. I'll not give away the results so you can enjoy the TV show when it airs on Speed TV.

Check out the video by clicking on the "Videos" link at the top of the page.