It was only a matter of time before Dean Goforth put his bright orange GXP in victory lane.

So it should come as no surprise that when Goforth crossed the finish line Sunday afternoon to claim his first career victory, he would need a few moments to take it all in.

“We finally got it done. It has taken us three years, but I mean it feels good,” Goforth said. “Honestly you try hard and things go wrong and today nothing went wrong. It was just a great day.”

After years of trying Goforth finally got his wish as he managed to drive around IHRA legend John Montecalvo in the final of Sunday’s MOPAR Canadian Nationals to claim his first career victory in his second ever final.

“If you go back and look at all the people I had to run today, it wasn’t luck,” Goforth said. “Beating Pete in the first round and John in the final and Richard and J.R. in the middle – that is a good weekend.”

Goforth (Holdenville, Okla.) ran a 6.401 elapsed time at 218.87 miles per hour got around Montecalvo as the New York native fell short of a win for the third time this season.

Montecalvo had trouble right from the start, limping across the line at 10.222 seconds.

Goforth defeated Richard Freeman, J.R. Carr and Pete Berner to get the win.

“I will say the luckiest thing I did today was have a triple zero reaction time and not red light. When I saw it at the end of the track it scared me to death,” Goforth said. “Everybody knows I will pull a red light and I thought what was I thinking, that was crazy.

“We made eight runs and seven of them were heck. We had been sneaking up on it all weekend and finally got it done this evening.”

It was the second time this season a Goforth has won a race as Goforth’s son, Cary, claimed his first career victory three months ago in Rockingham.

But on Sunday, it was all Goforth.

“Other than the boo-boo we had in Tulsa we have had a really good year,” Goforth said. “We have been to the final round three times as a team.

“That is pretty good for a bunch of farm boys.”

And what a weekend it was for the 65-year-old.

Goforth reached his second career final with a win over Richard Freeman in one of the best races of the afternoon. The two cars were welded together the entire run, but a perfect reaction time proved the difference as Goforth crossed the line on a 6.351 E.T. to Freeman’s 6.353 second run – mere inches at the line.

And that wasn’t even the closest race of the weekend for Goforth.

He produced a first round win over two-time champion Pete Berner that didn’t even register on the scoreboard – an astonishing .0000 second margin of victory – on a day where everything seemed to fall his way.

In quarterfinal action the crazy first round gave way to a slew of new faces in the final eight.

Montecalvo reached the finals thanks to a commanding win over Cale Aronson who turned out to be one of the best stories of the weekend. Driving in a borrowed car that hadn’t been on a track in well over a year, Aronson knocked off pole sitter Frank Gugliotta in the first round and made it all the way to the semifinals where his dream weekend finally came to an end at the hands of Montecalvo.

Despite not getting the win, Montecalvo leaped from fourth to second in points thanks to the wild day of Pro Stock racing. Montecalvo is now six points back of Gugliotta.

In quarterfinal action the crazy first round gave way to a slew of new faces in the final eight.

Aronson stole Gugliotta’s second round bye with his stunning upset to put himself in the semis while Montecalvo produced some big numbers to beat Jason Collins.

Goforth continued his breakout weekend with a win over Elite Motorsports Pro Stock entry J.R. Carr and Freeman won a staging war with John Pluchino.

Upset Sunday got underway early during the first round of professional eliminations in Pro Stock as the top three in points all fell out in the opening round, giving Montecalvo an easy road back into the hunt for the ’09 title.

While the first round was filled with stunners, by far the biggest upset of the first round came when Aronson knocked off No. 1 qualifier Gugliotta. Aronson struggled during the first two days of competition with oil downs and poor passes, but put that all behind him on Sunday.

Aronson knocked off the pole sitter with a solid pass as Gugliotta struggled from start to finish. Goforth also got a stunning first round win when he knocked off No. 2 qualifier Berner in one of the closest drag races in Pro Stock history.

Goforth edged the two-time champion by the slimmest of margins, recording an unheard of .0000 second margin of victory. It was also Goforth’s best career pass by a tenth of a second.

Cary Goforth also struggled in the opening round with his second consecutive first round loss as Freeman knocked him off on a morning where the right lane proved the downfall of a lot of teams.

In other first round action Montecalvo beat Chris Holbrook, Pluchino defeated John Konigshofer, Carr beat Bob Bertsch and Collins beat Mark Martino.
 

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