Hixson's Ron Lane came home from Memphis two weeks ago feeling like a million bucks.

A great month of drag racing for the "muscle cars" builder and dealer culminated with a first-place finish in the Comp Camps Million Dollar Race.

"It was awesome. That's like the Daytona 500 or the Indianapolis 500 for bracket racers," Lane said this week. "It's like the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby."

The check he got was actually $200,000 -- reduced from more than $500,000 by mutual agreement of the last 11 racers in contention, to build up the minimum payouts for them -- but Lane expects that on-site prize plus all the sponsorships the win means indeed will reach seven figures. Some of the deals will be made official at the Performance Racing Industry trade show the first week of December in Orlando, Fla.

"I asked the guy who won it last year if it really came out to a million, and he said that much or more," Lane said, citing Bill Mitchell Engines, Long Transmissions, Holley Cams and Goodyear among the companies that will set him up for anywhere he wants to race in 2010.

The Memphis win also guarantees Lane a place in the Drag Racers Hall of Fame and a full entry into next year's Million Dollar Race.

"I've chased this thing a lot of years. It's life-changing," said Lane, who has competed in half of the 14 Million Dollar races and finished 10th three years ago.

He got $15,000 for that. The entry fee for the Million Dollar Race is $2,500.

Lane, 45, went through 10 rounds of competition this time before winning with a 4.78-second run on a 4.78 dial in his Miller dragster with a 588-cubic-inch, alcohol-carbureted Chevrolet engine. Video of his eliminations is available at dragraceresults.com. Jeff Keen of Bradenton, Fla., got a $50,000 check for finishing second.

"I've won at least $265,000 with that car now. It cost me about $65,000," Lane said.

He got $5,000 for a win at the local Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip on Sept. 12 and subsequently took $10,000 for a victory at the Montgomery (Ala.) Motorsports Park that sealed his second consecutive Mullis Super 7 Series championship. That title earned him an all-expenses-paid trip for the weekend in Memphis.

Earlier this year, Lane was the runner-up in a $100,000-to-win race at Bristol. He got $40,000.

He is a 1981 graduate of Red Bank High School, where he lettered in five sports before wrestling at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Ron's Classic Cars, a longtime fixture in Hixson now based in Soddy-Daisy, gives him a chance to customize Camaros, Chevelles and the like for a living. He admits to "being a sucker for a '69 Camaro" -- he, wife Eva and his daughter Reagan each owns one -- and many of his customers are long-distance buyers, including Washington Redskins defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin.

Eva also is a successful drag racer. In fact, Ron and she were first and second in the Super Pro Class in a July 2008 race at the Brainerd Optimist strip. That was the first time a husband and wife raced each other in the finals, and he edged her out for the win.

"I was going to be a loser either way on that one," he said, laughing.

"I'm really blessed to be able to work on muscle cars and be able to race," said Ron, who attends Omega Harvest Church in Red Bank and repeatedly thanks God for the joys of his life.