Congratulations to Keith Ferguson, the 2026 MidSouth Derby and Ales Champion!
The 2026 season wrapped up at Flyway Brewing on October 3rd with the inaugural Championship Bracket. Keith earned his second season championship, adding his name to the hallowed trophy.
How It Went Down#
Race 6 kicked things off at 6pm, and after a brief technical intermission (and a propeller-powered surprise, more on that below), the Championship Bracket got rolling around 8:30.
Twenty-four cars. Single elimination. Head to head. No averages to hide behind, no “well, my lane 3 time was good.” Just two cars, one track, and the cold judgment of the timer.
Keith brought three cars and the 1 seed, and his The Switch - Part Deux never blinked. It cruised through the Round of 16, the Quarterfinals, and the Semifinals, then saved its best run of the night for last: a 2.338 (204.1 scale MPH) in the final, the fastest time of the entire bracket.
Standing in his way was the night’s Cinderella, Ryan Lloyd’s seed-10 Bass Drop, which won four straight, knocked off the 7, 2, and 11 seeds along the way, and then ran a 2.343 in the final. That would have beaten almost anything else on the track all night. Losing a championship by five thousandths of a second is the pinewood equivalent of getting dumped by text. Brutal, but you’ll be back.
The Final Four#
| Seed | Driver | Car | Path |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keith Ferguson | The Switch - Part Deux | Champion |
| 10 | Ryan Lloyd | Bass Drop | Runner-up |
| 5 | Merissa Davis | I Wish a Bitch Would… | Semifinals |
| 11 | Keith Ferguson | Toxic Vapor | Semifinals |
Half the Final Four belonged to Keith. We came within 0.010 seconds of an all-Keith final, which would have been the most expensive way possible to race yourself. Bass Drop beat Toxic Vapor 2.412 to 2.422 in the semis to make sure the rest of us had something to cheer about.
Toxic Vapor deserves its own moment of silence: it ran 2.343 twice and still didn’t make the final. Fastest car to go home early, by a mile.
Merissa made the deepest run of any non-Keith, non-Lloyd car, taking out a Chris Bryan car in the Quarterfinals before running into The Switch. Her car name did all the trash talking she needed.
Marital Matchups#
Nothing tests a marriage like 28 feet of wood track.
Chris vs. Anne Bryan, Round 1. Chris’s Splat beat Anne’s Mutant, 2.448 to 2.482, in the very first matchup of the night. Some men buy flowers. Chris knocked his wife out of the championship in the very first matchup, after a full Race 6 and a few rounds of Flyway beer. We’re sure “I didn’t see your name on the bracket” will hold up great at home.
Ryan vs. Julie Lloyd, Quarterfinals. The heavyweight bout. Julie’s SPIDERS came in as the 2 seed, fresh off winning Race 6 barely two hours earlier. Ryan’s Bass Drop sent it home, 2.348 to 2.357, the fastest losing time of the entire bracket. Nine thousandths of a second. We hope the car ride home was at least that quiet.
And the households that didn’t go head to head still kept score:
- The Davises: Merissa reached the Final Four. Chad, the season’s wildcard points leader, went out in Round 1 with a car he literally named Straight Garbage. Some of you call that self-awareness. We call it a forecast.
- The Hochsteins: Daniel and Whitney each won one matchup and each went out in the Round of 16. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
- The Thrifts: Three cars, zero wins. Greg, Kandace, and the whole Thrift fleet are hereby invited to spend the winter thinking about graphite.
The Outlaw Returns#
Between races, Steve Clark rolled out his propeller-powered Outlaw car for an exhibition run. Longtime racers will remember this machine as the reason our Outlaw class quietly died a few years back. Nobody wanted to build a car just to watch it get lapped by a ceiling fan.
It has not mellowed with age. The Outlaw cleared 430 scale MPH, more than double what The Switch ran to win the whole championship. On our timer, that’s somewhere around 1.1 seconds from gate to finish. Blink and you missed it. Several people did.
Which brings us to the question: should the Outlaw class come back? We’re thinking about it. If you’ve got a garage, a hobby motor, and a questionable relationship with safety, start sketching. Steve, consider yourself the target.
By the Numbers#
- 7 upsets in 23 matchups, including three straight in the Quarterfinals
- 2.338 / 204.1 scale MPH: The Switch’s winning run, fastest of the night
- 0.005 seconds: the margin in the final
- 4: matchups won by a 10 seed that had no business being in the final
- 430+ scale MPH: Steve Clark’s Outlaw, in an exhibition nobody was allowed to race against
- 2.577: Lance Greer’s Premature Acceleration, the slowest run of the night. For once, premature acceleration was not the problem.
Congratulations to Keith, and thanks to everyone who raced, drank, heckled, and helped make the first Championship Bracket a success. See you in 2027.
Check out the full 2026 Championship bracket and final season standings.