John Urist - on a Mission in 2008
Coming off his hard fought win at the NMRA Bradenton Florida event, John Urist enters Reynolds with not only the points lead but the mental edge as well. His competitors watched and witnessed Urist with a brand new engine combination and chassis overcome some initial new car blues to walk through the field with consistent 7.50s.
Granted, he didn't lay down the nasty haymaker of a low 7.40 pass, but Urist has never been one to boast about low e.t.'s preferring to go rounds than end up in a cloud of smoke.
The team laid down a few test passes on Friday, but there was nothing that spectacular to right home about. He lifted on one pass, and his other best was a 7.78 lifting at only 148 mph, but the track was not in terrific shape during test and tune. One pass even resulted in a 1.53 60-foot.
Burton - Best run of Test & Tune
Don Burton is not satisfied with his second place finish in 2007 and he will do anything and everything to topple Urist for the SSO championship in 2008. The sick thing is that Urist and Manny are both equally nuts and focused on the championship. All three of these players would claw each other's eye's out for a win, but of course, with grace and class because, well, they're classy guys.
Don Burton was the class of test and tune, which doesn't mean anything, other than he dropped a 7.56 at 187 mph run on the SSO group that couldn't get down the track.
John McDonald 
Since McDonald had a farm, he is right at home in Georgia. I walked around the pits yesterday and realized this guy might be a player in these upper ranks. He ran a nice 7.705 at 182 mph run.
Chris Burleson
Chris Burleson, another driver we haven't talked much about, also put together a nice package in test and tune with a 7.81 at 182. We gotta watch these new guys and see how they could influence the class.