ADRL COMPLETES MARTIN; FRIDAY QUALIFYING IN TOPEKA
With little time to spare, Joshua Hernandez secured a National Guard ADRL-leading sixth Pro Extreme win, while Shannon Jenkins matched that total in Pro Nitrous and Ashley Owens won his second Pro Extreme Motorcycle race in a row. The Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 class and Extreme Pro Stock both delivered first-time event winners, however, in Jeff Naiser and John Montecalvo, respectively.
Hernandez ran 3.90 seconds at 191.84 miles per hour over the National Guard ADRL’s eighth-mile course in the final round, with opponent Bubba Stanton left stranded on the starting line with a broken supercharger on his 1963 Corvette.
ADRL COMPLETES RAIN DELAYED MARTIN EVENT IN TOPEKA
With bad weather once more approaching, the National Guard American Drag Racing League (ADRL) was in hurry-up mode this evening
at Heartland Park Topeka with final-round eliminations for the Ford
Drive One Summer Drags V, already postponed by rain three weeks ago at
Martin, Michigan.
With little time to spare, Joshua Hernandez secured a National Guard
ADRL-leading sixth Pro Extreme win, while Shannon Jenkins matched that
total in Pro Nitrous and Ashley Owens won his second Pro Extreme
Motorcycle race in a row. The Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 class and Extreme
Pro Stock both delivered first-time event winners, however, in Jeff
Naiser and John Montecalvo, respectively.
Hernandez ran 3.90 seconds at 191.84 miles per hour over the National
Guard ADRL’s eighth-mile course in the final round, with opponent Bubba
Stanton left stranded on the starting line with a broken supercharger
on his 1963 Corvette.
“It’s been almost a year since I won one of these, but what a great way
to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend and honor our National Guard
soldiers,” said Hernandez, driver of the National Guard-backed ’57
Chevy. “It must be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder
because I sure am fond of this!”
The
Pro Nitrous final featured a battle of Alabama-based veterans, with
Jenkins and his Speedtech ’68 Camaro coming out on top with a
3.92/190.03 lap against Johnny Pilcher, who had to shut off early with
tire shake.
“The car worked perfect all day, but especially those last two rounds
where it ran almost identical (times),” Jenkins said, adding the win
gives him extra confidence for tomorrow’s qualifying and eliminations
for the Hardee’s Independence Drags III. “We’re in good shape; now
we’ll see if we can do this again.”
Doing it again came naturally for Owens, who won his career-first race
under similar conditions in a rain-postponed final from Memphis at the
Michigan event. In Topeka, he overcame a starting-line advantage by
Scott Gray by posting a 4.26-seconds pass at 169.81 mph astride the
2005 Suzuki owned by fellow rider T.T. Jones.
Naiser said his Extreme 10.5 win was welcome relief after coming up
short in the previous event in the final round against reigning class
champ Billy Glidden, who bowed out in round two, breaking a five race
winning streak that dated back to last fall.
“That’s
what we’re here to do, is win,” Naiser said after going 4.11 at 177.02
to edge out Jeff Paulk by just six-thousandths of a second. “It doesn’t
matter who’s in the other lane, all I want to do is beat them to the
finish and today it finally all worked out.”
Montecalvo was equally thrilled with his first National Guard ADRL
Extreme Pro Stock win after leading Jason Collins stripe-to-stripe with
a 4.19 at 164.87-mph trip down the Topeka strip.
“I’ve been in a couple of these finals before and I would always hear
the winners say, ‘That was a damn good drag race,’ and I would always
think it was pretty good, but not damn good. Well, today it’s damn
good!”
Saturday’s on-track action at Heartland Park Topeka will begin at 10
a.m. with the remainder of the opening round of Pro Extreme qualifying
for the Hardee’s Independence Drags III, cut short by rain with several
pairs of cars waiting in the staging lanes, followed by two scheduled
rounds of qualifying for all five professional National Guard ADRL
classes and eliminations to determine champions for the Independence
Drags.
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