Dave Triplett wins the 24th Million Dollar Drag Race

Dave Triplett drove his Chevy Vega to his third Million Dollar Drag Race final on Sunday in winning the prestigious race for the second time.

MONTGOMERY, AL – The 24th Annual Mickey Thompson Million Dollar Drag Race crowned it’s third two-time champion on Sunday at Montgomery Raceway Park. Dave Triplett, racing in his third final at the Million, drove past second-generation racer Timothy Thomas to claim his second Million Dollar race win.

Triplett, the 2008 event winner and 2013 runner up, drove the wheels off his classic Chevy Vega. The car is the same weapon used in both of his previous final round appearances.

The Million Race Recap

Prior to crowning the 24th event champion, the Folk family worked around intermittent rain showers for over a week. A week prior, the Triple $15K Warm Up Million schedule was shuffled around due to weather issues. After finally finishing the last $15K on Tuesday, racers were ready to move into the Million Dollar Drag Race program.

Click here to see full results from the Triple $15K Warm Up Million races.

The opening event, a $15K Warm Up, went off as scheduled on Wednesday. Matt Dadas continued his recent hot-streak with yet another win taking out Johnny Ezell in the final. Things got interesting on Thursday as the schedule was adjusted to account for incoming weather scheduled for the weekend.

The Thursday and Friday $30’s were combined and ran as a $60K on Thursday. Racers competed until midnight on Thursday were only eight competitors remained. Sugar Shane Carr defeated Paul Rich in the final round which was completed on Friday morning.

With an uncertain forecast for Friday, the Folk’s rolled straight into the Sunday $30K on Friday morning. After racing down to 31 cars, rain delayed the final few rounds until after the Million final on Sunday.

The Million Main Event

Racers awoke to a decent forecast on Saturday so the 24th Annual Million Dollar Drag Race rolled into action. After a round of time trials, racing kicked off. About half way through the first round, the rain showed up again and didn’t stop until late in the evening.

The rain did stop early enough for a great racer appreciation steak dinner. The party was well attended and entertaining to say the least. The party finally wound down sometime around 2AM.

With the rain behind them, Sunday’s weather was dry and beautiful. All Million Dollar Race entrants received a time trial and moved into eliminations. As the rounds clicked off, several stories began to develop.

Kevin Pollard made a deep run swapping feet in his Chevy Luv truck. KB, Kevin Brannon took two entries deep into the Million before mechanical issues caused him to back out of the beams twice in a three-run stretch.

Vegas Million race winner Peeps Pennington was looking to pull a Jeff Verdi by winning both Million Dollar races in the same season. And finally Josh Luedke, a $15K winner earlier in the week, was looking to pull off a double in Montgomery.

Pollard eventually fell at eleven cars after he couldn’t convert an .006 to .025 reaction time advantage over Jon Siegel into a win light. Brannon’s impressive run ended at six cars on a red-light to Peeps. Josh Luedke’s race to a double ended at three cars when he let go -.001 too soon against race winner Triplett.

Peeps’ dream to win two Million’s in the same year ended in the semifinals when his .006 take .018 ended in a -.004 breakout loss to Triplett. Dave was .019 dead one to move into his third Million Dollar Race final. With a bye in the semi’s, Timothy Thomas rolled into his first Million final to square off with Triplett.

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Triplett was .011 take .006 in the final to post a dead-on 5.742 for the win. Thomas threw down a solid .019-pack in the final but came up just short of the Million trophy.

Congratulations to Dave Triplett on becoming just the third racer to win the Million Dollar Drag Race on two occasions. He is now the only man to ever stage in three finals at the Original Million Dollar Drag Race!

The final few rounds of the Sunday $30K was held up until after the Million since Timothy Thomas was also still alive in that event. At the end of the evening it was Tyler Bohannon taking the $30K win over David “Bird” Jones in the final round.

And with that, another eventful edition of the original Million Dollar Drag Race was in the books!

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