On Friday morning at Indy, Jim Daniels wasn’t sure he’d even be able to compete in the Mopar Hemi Challenge, much less win it. Participating in the traditional parade lap in front of the main grandstands, Daniel’s Hemi Dart backfired, and blew the top off the sheetmetal intake manifold, and caught fire. Although the fire was extinguished quickly, Daniels had little time to repair the damage. Being a dentist, Daniels quickly came up with the brilliant idea to use dental impression material to seal the intake and hours later, he defeated his friend and engine builder David Barton to claim the $10,000 Hemi Challenge title.

“If you had asked me this morning I never would have thought I’d be here right now,” said Daniels, who won the final on a holeshot, 8.56 to 8.55. Ironically, Daniels is driving the same Dodge that Barton drove to the Hemi Challenge title in 2000. “I didn’t think we could fix the intake but this dental impression material dries in five minutes so we were good to go. I set the national record last year with an 8.28 and that was big, but this is Indy. It’s bigger.

Jim Daniels, near lane, won the Mopar HEMI Challenge on a final-round holeshot over David Barton, 8.56 to 8.55.

“Honestly, this is a win for the team,” Daniels continued. “The Bartons [Dave and his father, Ray] built my engines and they built the engine in Tyler Hard’s car and he was in the semifinals. We missed the first qualifying session because we left home 35 hours later than we wanted to because they were still working at the shop. That shows you how good, and how dedicated they are.”

While many had expected to see side by side 8.4s in the final round, both competitors were lucky they ran as well as they did since they both ran into problems. Barton shook the tires so hard that the gauges in his dash moved and the glove box door came open while Daniels got loose and moved towards the centerline.

“No matter what happened, I wasn’t going to lift,” said Daniels. “It spun the tires like mad but I was sticking with it.”

Daniels was solid throughout eliminations as he opened his day with an 8.59 against Randy Warford’s Super Cuda and then defeated Larry Perkins’ new Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins powered Cuda on a holeshot, 8.58 to 8.53. Another holeshot win followed over former Jim Pancake, 8.56 to 8.54 before Daniels received the bye into the final.

“I drove pretty well all day,” said Daniels. “Even in the final, I had a .018 reaction time and I needed all of it. This was just a great day for us.”

Despite the loss, it was hard for Barton to be too disappointed. His path to the final included an 8.49 in round two, one of the quickest runs of eliminations.”

“In the final, I thought I was ahead but the car was just shaking the tires so bad,” said Barton. “I just needed a little bit more than we had. Yeah, it’s frustrating, but as long as our team won, I can deal with it.”

Early in the weekend, many expected the Westcott family, Charlie Sr. and Jr., would cruise to their fifth Hemi Challenge win in the last six years, particularly after Charlie Jr. dropped a bomb on the field with an 8.41 in qualifying. However,  by Thursday night, the Warfish team was no where to be seen on the grounds of O’Reilly Raceway Park as they suffered two broken engines and headed for their shop in Parma, Mich., in an attempt to make repairs. The Westcott’s never made it back to Indy which changed the entire complexion of the race.