Richardson wins the big $50K DragCoverage.com Internet Magazine Posted May.28 Scotty Richardson came into Saturday’s $50,000-to-win main event as the defending champion, having claimed the top prize at the inaugural World Footbrake Challenge. Despite his reputation as arguably the greatest and most versatile driver in sportsman drag racing history, Richardson’s odds of repeating were long. There are only a handful of $50,000-to-win bracket events contested each season (in Box or Footbrake). To date, no driver had ever won the same $50,000-to-win event on two occasions, much less back-to-back. In fact, only Peter Biondo (who won both the Atco and Cecil County $50,000 events in 2000) and Gary Williams (who claimed the Gateway $50,000 win in 2000 and the Montgomery $50,000 in 2005) are the only two competitors to score in more than one $50,000-to-win event (Williams, the king of big dollar events, is also the only driver to win two Million Dollar Races). In Footbrake-only competition, the World Footbrake Challenge II was only the third event of this magnitude ever contested (including last season’s WFC, and the 2006 running of the Ultimate Footbrake Challenge at Montgomery Motorsports Park which paid $80,000-to-win). The only comparable accomplishment on the Footbrake level belongs to WFC promoter Jared Pennington, who won the Huntsville Dragway $20,000 event in 2004, and added the Piedmont Footbrake Nationals $20,000 triumph last season. Despite the long odds, it was Richardson once again emerging from the talent laiden field. He drove his S10 pickup, the same machine that carried him to victory in 2007, to the main event win, further cementing his legacy as one of the most dominant competitors the sport has ever seen. Richardson defeated former Piedmont Dragway $20,000 Footbrake race winner Jacob Rutledge in the final round. Following a string of great reaction times highlighted by a quarterfinal .000 that earned him the bye to the final, Richardson left the line with a .024 reaction in the final stanza. Rutledge, however, posted his worst reaction of the day, .050, and then encountered problems; slowing to a 6.612 on his 6.48 dial, which allowed Richardson to coast thru for a relatively easy victory with a 6.865 on his 6.82 target. Former B&M Series World Champion Randall Roop was the lone semi-finalist, while Doyle Kay, and Bradley Smith took home quarterfinal money.