After an agonizing 2017 NHRA Pro Stock season, things are have rebounded nicely for Vincent Nobile so far this season.

Nobile has two national event wins in 2018 – his latest came Sunday at the Southern Nationals near Atlanta.

Nobile clocked a 6.599-second elapsed time at 209.72 mph to defeat Tanner Gray’s 6.614-second lap at 209.52 mph.

“I had the car to beat this weekend, I know we didn’t qualify No. 1, but going back after each run and looking at the computer, we know we could have been the fastest car each session. It just so happened we weren’t during qualifying, but on race day we put it together and we were the fastest car every session, which I thought was pretty big. This track was a little tricky, a lot of adjustment on a Pro Stock car and we finally figured it out come today (Sunday). (Brian) Lump (Self, Nobile’s crew chief) did a great job turning those knobs. We got to keep lane choice. I thought that was pretty big. We wanted to stay in that right lane all day. That was our goal and we did that. All in all, it was a great day.”

Nobile also won the Four-Wide Nationals April 8 in Las Vegas. He now has 12 career wins and moved up to first in the season point standings in his Mountain View Tire Chevy Camaro. Nobile has a 48-point lead over reigning Pro Stock world champion Bo Butner.

Nobile’s victory parade consisted of wins over Alan Prusiensky, Chris McGaha, Greg Anderson and Gray.

Vincent Nobile joined Richard Freeman’s Elite Motorsports team in 2016, finishing fifth in the points, highlighted by a win at Reading, Pa. Last season, Vincent competed in 19 of the 24 races, and placed 10th in the point standings. His best performance was a runner-up effort at Englishtown, N.J.

Vincent sat out the final five races of the season – Reading, Pa., St. Louis, Dallas, Las Vegas and Pomona – when his team owner Nick Mitsos decided to pull the plug.

“Naturally gearing is huge, especially nowadays in Pro Stock because of the Rev limiter,” Nobile said. “Fortunately, this weekend I was the back half guy because our guy Ryan stayed home. Typically, we change the rear gear almost every run because we just can’t seem to get it right, but I guess I got lucky because I only had to change it one when I got here, so that was pretty cool. Gearing is everything. We found a little trick come round two we tried something in the transmission box and it worked out and traveled really well. I don’t know if it will correlate at the next track, being that the track might be a little bit better, but it worked on this track that was a little marginal coming 330.”

Nobile said he wished Nick Mitsos, and his wife, Irene would have been able to celebrate his latest win with him.

“Unfortunately, Nick and Irene are not here this weekend, but I can’t thank them enough for letting me come out here and play because this is play for me,” Nobile said. “They let me come out here and play while they are home watching and cheering us on. It is really awesome to be able to run the whole season. My father (John) and I have a bunch of work back at home, but this is what we love to do so we make it happen. We have the car to beat right now, that’s for sure. If we had to quit and sit home I would have been depressed. I would have just slept the whole day. It is all good and thank you much to the Mitsos family for letting me do this.”