Bret Kepner

MALLICOAT BECOMES FIRST TWO-TIME SCSS SERIES CHAMPION!

Madison, IL---Tim “Moose” Mallicoat, who won the 2007 Street Car Shootout Series Championship with one of the most dominant performances in track history, scored another milestone in his career by securing a second consecutive season title in SCSS competition at Gateway International Raceway. For the second straight year, the Collinsville, Illinois, driver received the monstrous SCSS Championship trophy, a custom GIR SCSS Champion leather jacket, photos of his 2008 Championship season, special SCSS Champion decals, and a Gold Card good for free admission to all 2009 SCSS series events.

Gaining the title over 2,304 other entries which participated in the eighteen-race Tuesday night series, Mallicoat’s black M&M Automotive-sponsored “Hellraiser” 1968 Chevrolet Camaro faced significantly tougher opposition in the 2008 season. During his 2007 romp, Mallicoat won sixteen of nineteen completed events, was undefeated for thirteen consecutive weeks and amassed an astounding record of thirty-three elimination rounds won with only two losses, a round-win percentage of 94.29%. Again battling archrival Tony Huff for the point title throughout the year, Mallicoat’s 2008 tally included eight eliminator victories with a balance of nineteen wins and seven losses and a round-win average of 73.07%. Likewise, Mallicoat qualified atop the weekly sixteen-car field eight times in his second championship season compared to his record-breaking fourteen pole positions in 2007. Six of twenty-four scheduled 2008 events were cancelled by weather.

“It was definitely a tougher season”, said Mallicoat of the 2008 series, “but to be the first two-time winner and to take back-to-back titles might be more gratifying than winning my first. We definitely weren’t the quickest or fastest out here but we had consistency and I honestly think the fact that we could repeat a competitive number every week is what won this title”. In fact, the consistency of Mallicoat’s naturally-aspirated, gasoline-burning 565-cubic inch Chevy powerplant bordered on incredible. Of fifty-seven quarter-mile runs in 2008 SCSS competition, Mallicoat had only nine aborted runs. The other forty-eight passes were all closely packed between a career-best 8.53 seconds and 8.86 seconds, including an amazing thirty-two runs between 8.60 and 8.69! Even the Camaro’s finish-line speeds were astonishingly consistent, varying only between 158.78 and 153.47 mph.

Unlike 2007, Mallicoat assumed the series point lead from fellow Collinsville, Illinois, racer Tony Huff in only the third event of the season on April 15th and, although the “Moose” carried a miniscule one-point lead for most of the season, a devastating engine explosion by Huff in August allowed Mallicoat to break away from the pack and secure his second straight championship on September 23rd, three weeks before the end of the season. “There were four other cars quicker than ours this year”, noted Mallicoat, “and all of them were at least two-tenths of a second quicker. With people like “Woody” Woodruff, (the SCSS record holder at 8.25 seconds, 178.71 mph), out here, it’s certainly not what anybody could consider an easy field. These are some of the quickest and fastest cars on street-legal tires anywhere in the Midwest. I don’t think there is any question that we’ll need seven-second horsepower in this series next year. I still refuse to use nitrous oxide injection but we’ll have a new engine for 2009 that will keep us in the hunt”.

The championship is decided by a point total based on two points awarded for qualifying in the top four positions and one point earned for qualifying fifth through sixteenth at each SX Performance Street Car Shootout Series event at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, IL. Mallicoat completed the 2008 season with all but one available point, (from a possible thirty-six), after he failed to qualify in the top four positions on April 15th. All vehicles must compete using Department of Transportation-approved (street legal) tires.

For the second year in a row, Huff finished in second place in the final point standings, (this year driving brother Dale Huff’s 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air), while third place was again taken by Edwardsville, Illinois, racer Raymond Arthur’s 1967 Chevy Camaro. A total of one hundred forty-five different competitors earned qualifying points during the series. Mallicoat maintained another tradition by ensuring the giant SCSS Championship trophy remained in the state of Illinois. All five SCSS season champions, including inaugural champ Laurence Bass (2004), Kevin Kolkmeyer (2005), and Tony Buhl (2006), hail from the Land of Lincoln.

“My family was with me at every race again this year. This is something we really enjoy doing together and to get a second giant trophy is a great reward for all the work that went into the championship”, said Mallicoat as he marveled at the 56-inch-tall award. “My son, Tim, might be making his debut in my original ‘68 Camaro next year and, if we have a two-car team, it’ll be even more work but, as a dad, I’ll look forward to that. We have so many people who help us throughout the year; I truly want to thank everybody who helped and supported us. Next year will be tough for the racers but we have a great group of folks who compete in this series and that’s half the fun of racing at Gateway every Tuesday. I’ll say this, though…we’ve put on a heck of a show the past few years but 2009 ought to be a spectator’s dream. This series will only get wilder!“.




Tim “Moose” Mallicoat hoists both massive 2007 and 2008 Street Car Shootout Series Champion trophies at the season-ending SCSS event on October 14th at Gateway International Raceway.



Tim “Moose” Mallicoat’s 565-cubic inch, gasoline-burning, carbureted “Hellraiser” 1968 Chevrolet Camaro.







Watch for the 2008 Street Car Shootout Series Season Review coming during the holiday season!