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Sonny’s
Racing Engines Puts Racers in the Winners Circle at PDRA
East Coast Nationals
LYNCHBURG, Va. (April 17, 2017): Sonny’s Racing Engines
helped two customers win their first Professional Drag
Racers Association event. James Hancock took home top
honors of the ultra-competitive Pro Nitrous category and
Chris Powers was triumphant in Extreme Pro Stock at the
East Coast Nationals. While both racers have years of
experience, the PDRA is a new challenge for them, but
their Sonny’s power was up to the task.
Hancock qualified in the middle of the pack and used
consistent low 3.70 runs to weave through the competition.
In the final, he met reigning world champ, Tommy Franklin.
Hancock and team owner Brian Shaw knew they would need
their best run of the day to take down Franklin. At the
stripe, Hancock and Franklin laid down nearly identical
elapsed times (3.701 and 3.700), but Hancock crossed the
line first thanks to his better reaction time.
“The Sonny’s power is absolutely working great for us,”
said Shaw. The team also won the U.S. Street Nationals
earlier this year. Their accomplishments so far are that
much more impressive because the car and engine
combination are all new to the team this year. “Sonny’s
just a great guy. Anything I need he’s there; he’s got it
for me. They stand behind their product really well.
They’re just great people to deal with. Sonny’s engines
are making just as much power as anybody’s.”
Shaw, Hancock and Louise Ornfelt from FuelTech have a
unique approach to their team. “Everything we do is
majority rules,” Shaw explained. “We all look at the
graphs. We all make the decisions on what we’re going to
do next. We work as a cohesive team. Everybody has a lot
of experience and we combine that. We have two other guys,
Matt and Steve, who come on their own dime to travel with
us. They do a great job.”
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Fellow Sonny’s customer,
Chris Powers, was not expecting to find himself in the winner’s circle
just yet. The PS team had only been together for one test session before
heading to the PDRA East Coast Nationals.
“The first passes in the Pro Stock were at GALOT Motorsports Mad Mule race
a few weeks back,” Powers explained. “We made two runs there and couldn’t
get off the starting line. The shift light wouldn’t work. The two-step
wouldn’t work. So we threw in the towel and headed back to Pennsylvania.
So then we didn’t run again until testing at the PDRA race. It was a
struggle. I couldn’t see and couldn’t get a feel to leave. We just kept
making adjustments and changing weights to try to keep the front end down
to help me out. We made that 4.10 pass Friday night and that pretty much
changed everything. That was a huge boost in confidence. Right now I have
11 passes in the car, total. Nine of those are from the PDRA race.”
Powers qualified his ATI-backed Camaro solidly in the middle of the pack
with that 4.10 run, and while the team was celebrating simply finding a
good baseline for the car, they were soon to have much more to celebrate.
Powers, who also competes in Top Dragster, won first round in both
categories, but decided to focus only on the Pro Stock moving into second
round. It paid off. In the final round he met up with multi-time champ,
Cary Goforth. It was door-to-door from start to finish, a race that truly
exhibited what Pro Stock is all about. They left within two thousandths of
each other (.028 for Goforth, .030 for Powers) and Powers crossed the
finish line one thousandth of a second ahead of Goforth (4.097 to 4.100).
“It was very surprising, to say the least,” the former VW racer expressed.
“It’s exciting. I definitely didn’t expect anything like that. I figured
it would take six or seven races before we could get that far. But we just
gelled. Everybody on the crew meshed. Everybody was about going racing and
having fun. We didn’t have any pressure on us. Big thanks to the crew, and
crew chief Rob Bealko. I could have never done it without them. And a big
thanks to my wife Dianne for participating it and allowing me to do it.
“We started buying motors from Sonny back in 2009. We started out with
smaller engines and progressed up. They’ve been really good with
communication, being able to call them anytime I needed help. They’ve been
a big help. They’re like a big family. They bring you in and make you a
part of it. It’s definitely great to feel like you really mean something
to them.”
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