There was a time when Vincent Nobile and the Mountainview Tire team was going to park their car and take a break. For the record, Sunday wasn't the time.

Nobile picked up his third Pro Stock win of 2018, beating Drew Skillman in the final round of the Dodge NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pa., the first stop of the 2018 NHRA Countdown to the Championship.

Nobile proved it isn't how one starts a race but how they finish which counts the most.

"Honestly Q1 we went out there and made a pretty solid hit," Nobile explained. "We were happy with it; we were number three and Elite was on top. I believe it was Jeggy, Erica and me. So everything was looking up and up, and then we kind of went downhill from there. We made a few mistakes in qualifying. At the end of the day on Friday, we were a little bummed out where we had ended up. And then Saturday had come, and we really didn’t improve like we wanted to.

"Once Saturday was over, we kind of found a few things that we wanted to change for Sunday, not knowing for sure if it would be okay or not but we were pretty confident in it. Obviously, it turned out to be okay. All in all, what a great way to start the countdown with a win."

While Nobile is happy to win the event, he quickly points out the class is at a point where anyone can win on any given day.

"If you really look at it, if you’re an avid Pro Stock fan, every single team out here could win the race," Nobile explained. "It’s just who has their stuff together the best that weekend. As you could see, I don’t even know how many different winners, nine or 10 different Pro Stock winners this year, so the parity is there. It can’t be any better. You’ve just got to do the best you can. You’ve got to cross your T's, dot your I's and that’s the only way you can win a Pro Stock race this year."

In fact, Nobile and his team did some soul-searching early in the season.

"Come Vegas earlier this year, that was going to be my last race for a little while," Nobile said. "I’m not even sure what our schedule was going to be; we were just going to play it by ear. We had won that race and that kind of just solidified my whole season there. It was definitely a clutch win. Moving forward from there, we went on to win Atlanta, and that just showed us we had a good car.

"We kind of fell off after Atlanta, but we were trying some things; obviously the track prep might have messed us up a little bit. But here we are now; now we’ve just got to move forward. I think we have a pretty good race car. And like I said, we’re not going to be the fastest car at each race, nobody is for that matter because the power is just so close. It’s just whoever gets it right. But as long as we can be in the top five in qualifying, for this matter top six in qualifying, I think we can get the job done."

On Sunday, Nobile got the job done and was the picture of consistency with a 6.571 (Matt Hartford), 6.594 (Erica Enders), 6.594 (Greg Anderson) and a 6.586 to beat Skillman on a holeshot.

"The second round and third round were huge; every little point matters," Nobile said. I mean the small points in qualifying matter. The championship could be won by one point literally. Last year it went down to the last round with Bo there. So every little point counts. We need to do our best in qualifying; we really need to get some little points because you don’t want one person grabbing those like Greg did this year. He didn’t win a race for the longest time and was still number one in points because he kept getting nearly 15-20 points in qualifying each weekend.

"That’s a round at a time. That’s going to be critical come the countdown because it’s already here, and like I said, just got to cross your T’s and dot your I’s."