Rick Prosser’s 2018 Chevy Impala Tops 259 MPH at ECTA Season Opener
May 2021 • Presented by BUAMotorsport.com & RatTrapRacing.comTurn phone horizontal to see captions
Big Red’s out-of-the-box 249 mph was not enough to beat Rich Prosser’s 259 mph Impala and Rick Harden’s 256 mph Corvette.
As dedicated race tracks continue to be gobbled up by urban development, more groups are turning to little used airstrips to hold pop-up events. For the third year in a row, we have made it down to Arkansas Aeroplex, Blytheville, AR for the ECTA (formerly East Coast Timing Association), Arkansas Mile as the guests of Ron Hope’s Rat Trap Racing.
We were not alone—this year more than 120 racers tackled the long strip of concrete that, I’m told, is eight feet thick because Blytheville was a Strategic Air Base and home to B-57 and B-52 bombers until it closed in 1992. Now, it appears to be more of an aircraft graveyard due to Covid. Sad, but a neat backdrop for foot-to-the-floor racing on the 2.2-mile 150-ft wide runway that the city just spent $100,000 renovating. The track was laid out over four distances: ½-mile, ¾-mile, 1 mile, and 2 kilometers.
As mentioned, RJ Gottlieb was there with his Big Red Camaro hoping to better his previous Airstrip Attack run. This time, the BRC team had their traction problems under control and an early run netted 249.931 mph. Sadly, that was it for the #1 Camaro.
As the Brits would say: two and a half tons (250 mph) is good, darn good, but not quite good enough to beat Richard Prosser Jr.’s 259.890 mph run in his 2018 Chevy Impala ex-Cup car and runner up Rick Harden’s 256.996 run in his ’92 Corvette.
What we love about land speed racing is the diversity of machinery and the AR Mile attracted an eclectic group from 11-year-old TK Boyd’s 115-mph Legends car to Summit Racing’s Tesla 3. Yes, an electric car that ran 146 mph with only wheel and tire but no power train mods. No doubt we’ll be hearing more of Summit’s effort.
I’ve only recently taken notice of the Ford Cyclone/Mercury Talladega but there were four at Blytheville—all very different. My favorite was Rick Lind’s mighty blue brick but as Rick pointed out aerodynamics are not always pretty, but they are effective—his Talladega has gone 238 mph but Rick managed 228.833 at Arkansas.
Another camp of cool cars— that included a Talladega— we will follow up with was that of North Carolina’s The Garage Shop. Driver Aaron Brown ran a stout 225.225 in the Torino and 226.643 in the Dodge Daytona.
Other ‘up there’ speeds were 246.440 by Clark Rosenstengel in a 2010 Corvette and 240.899 by Bill Riggall in a 2015 Corvette Z06. One of my favorite cars was the ’65 Chevy Corvair of Greg Lloyd that went 139.838 with its newly-fitted supercharger.
Overall, it was a great season opener for the ECTA and for more info, full results and future dates go to: ECTAMile.com
