This has been a frustrating season for three-time Pro Stock world champion Jason Line.

The driver of the Summit Racing Equipment Chevy Camaro entered the Carolina Nationals this weekend seventh in the point standings and winless on the season.

Line broke out of his slump by beating the red-hot Tanner Gray in the final round Sunday in Charlotte.

Line clocked a 6.531-second lap at 211.89 mph to edge Gray’s 6.534-second run at 211.43 mph.

Line cut a .020 light, while Gray was .044 on the tree.

“I was just trying to be calm and cut the best light that I was capable of cutting,” Line said. “When I left, I said 'well I got it as good as I can get it.' I’ll be honest, when I looked over in high gear and didn’t see him I was pleasantly surprised for sure. I thought maybe he shook. Nonetheless, it was a great run and our team did a great job on our race car today. I was fortunate enough to do a good enough job with my left foot to get it done.”

This was Line’s 50th career NHRA Pro Stock Wally – 48th in Pro Stock to go along with the two he has in Stock.

Gray had won eight of the 12 races he had against Line prior to Sunday and this was their first meeting in a final round. Line remains seventh in the points – eight behind his teammate Greg Anderson, who is sixth.

Line has now won at least one national event in 15 consecutive years, which is an NHRA record.

“Obviously, streaks are cool, but nobody really cares about streaks in the end,” Line said. “Certainly, Summit and Ken (Black, the team owner) are not paying me to keep the streak alive, they are paying me to win races and do a good job and I haven’t done a good job this year. It has been a struggle for sure.

I guess the good part of that is when you do finally win you appreciate it for sure. It’s tough we have a lot of cars and a lot of things to take care of and I need to figure out how to do a better job of balancing all that and still be able to drive good. This year has not been a good example of how to do it, but we are getting off to a good finish.”

There are two races left in the NHRA season – Las Vegas (Oct. 25-28) and Pomona, Calif. (Nov. 8-11).

Gray has won a class-high seven races this season.

“(Alan) Reinhart (NHRA announcer) made a deal with me and I was dumb enough to accept the deal that if I didn’t win a race this year he would get a shop tour,” Line said. “I made it this far (in this race), I figured I might as well finish the job. The last thing we wanted is to have him in our shop.”

During his victory parade Sunday, Line beat Bo Butner, Jeg Coughlin, Drew Skillman and Gray.

“I was wondering if I was going to shake or Bo was going to shake in the first round,” said Line, who won Pro Stock world titles in 2006, 2011, and 2016. “I was trying to figure out who was going to do it. Fortunately, neither one of us did and we had a very good race. Bo has struggled this year as well and we both did a good job on the starting line and we had a good race and I was fortunate to come on the right side of it. I think I owe him a few anyway.”