The inaugural Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) Championship Finals were set to wrap up Saturday, Oct. 11, but after several rain showers interrupted Friday's qualifying sessions a third day was added to the schedule. Compounding the time crunch at Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP), near Richmond, was rain at the previous PDRA event last month at Rockingham, NC, that postponed the completion of elimination rounds to within qualifying at VMP.

 The inaugural Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) Championship Finals were set to wrap up Saturday, Oct. 11, but after several rain showers interrupted Friday's qualifying sessions a third day was added to the schedule. Compounding the time crunch at Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP), near Richmond, was rain at the previous PDRA event last month at Rockingham, NC, that postponed the completion of elimination rounds to within qualifying at VMP.

"We are going to get both of these races completed here," PDRA Director Bob Harris declared. "We're going to start early tomorrow (Saturday), about 8:30, get qualifying and the Rockingham race finished and complete at least one round for the Virginia race."

The revised schedule calls for two qualifying rounds for all classes on Saturday, with the second and third rounds of racing from Rockingham completed within them. Following that will be all final rounds from the delayed Rockingham event and then the first round of eliminations for the PDRA Championship Finals.

Also expected on the VMP grounds for Saturday's and Sunday's action is a rented jet dryer for the track, just in case the wet stuff continues to fall. PDRA officials scrambled late Friday afternoon to find a track dryer before finally finding one in Kentucky to be driven to VMP overnight.

"It slowed us down a lot not having a jet dryer here today," Harris admitted. "That won't be a problem anymore, not this weekend and not next year, when you can be sure we'll have one at every event, just in case."