July 27, 2014
MUSI GETS BREAKTHROUGH PDRA WIN AT
RICHMOND; SNIDER, GOFORTH AND
RIVENBARK ALSO VICTORIOUS
PETERSBURG, VA (July 27, 2014) --
Lizzy Musi, the 23-year-old daughter
of doorslammer drag racing legend Pat
Musi, earned her career-first win
Saturday night in the inaugural
Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA)
U.S. Drags at Virginia Motorsports
Park (VMP), near Richmond. Musi beat
points leader Jason Harris in the
Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous final,
ending Harris' undefeated streak from
all four PDRA races previously held
this year.
Also picking up pro class wins were
Brandon Snider in the NAS Racing Pro
Extreme class, Cary Goforth with his
third Aruba.com Extreme Pro Stock
victory of the season, Kevin Rivenbark
in Precision Turbo/Proline Pro Boost
and veteran rider Billy Vose with his
first PDRA win in Pro Extreme
Motorcycle.
Sportsman class victories went to
Bruce Thrift in Magnafuel Top
Sportsman, Derrik Sholar in STT Safety
Equipment Top Dragster, and Preston
Tanner and David Roloff in Huddleston
Performance Pro Jr. Dragster and Top
Jr. Dragster, respectively.
PRO NITROUS
Musi qualified her Frank Brandao-owned
2009 Stratus in the number-one
position over a PDRA record 32 Pro
Nitrous entries with a career-best
3.74 seconds at 199.23 mph over the
VMP eighth mile. Harris started from
the second position after posting a
3.79-seconds qualifying pass.
In eliminations, Musi beat David
Campbell, Jay Cox and John Camp to
reach the final, while Harris raced
through George Williams III and Tommy
Franklin before catching a break in
the semis when Chris Patrick left too
early to throw away a 3.87 run that
easily would've beaten the 4.20 posted
by Harris when the engine in his '68
Firebird sustained damage.
In the final round, Harris left first
with a slight .007 advantage, but Musi
won with another solid 3.88
performance at 181.64 mph, while
Harris faded to a 4.24 at 136.90-mph
effort.
Musi was overcome with emotion at the
top end of the track after the win,
remaining in her car for several
minutes while gathering her thoughts
and composure. "This is unbelievable,
like a dream come true. Well, it is a
dream come true," she said upon
exiting. "I've been dreaming a long
time about winning a race and for it
to finally come true is, well, I don't
even know what to say."
The Mooresville, NC-based driver went
on to praise her crew for their hard
work and dedication to getting the job
done, singling out crew chief Gary
Henry and her father for making the
right calls both at the shop and in
the pits. Pat Musi said he "couldn't
be prouder" of his daughter.
"That kid, she deserves this win. I
couldn't be happier for her right
now," he said. "She's put in the work
and learned what she needed to and
everyone on this team recognized that
and that's why they all work so hard
to help her. We know we have the car,
we know we have the driver, so now all
we have to do is go out there get it
done again."
PRO EXTREME
Operating on probably one of the
tightest budgets in the Pro Extreme
class, Snider showed up in Richmond
without a screw blower to bolt atop
his alcohol-burning Hemi, but was able
to borrow a spare from fellow
competitor Neal Wantye that helped the
former Marine earn his first PDRA
trophy after reaching his
second-straight Pro Extreme final.
After qualifying third with a
3.58-seconds pass at 211.10 mph,
behind only pole sitter Bubba Stanton
(3.53/217.18) and Dubai racer Badir
Ahli (3.56/213.84), Snider ran 3.63 to
win his first elimination round over
Randell Reid, whom he'd lost to in the
final a month earlier at Martin,
Michigan. Snider, from Atmore, Ala.,
then got quicker with each successive
trip to the starting line in his '63
Corvette.
A 3.60 at 209.49 dispatched Terry
Leggett from round two before Snider
went 3.57 at 210.90 to win in the
semis against Ahli, who left with a
-.113 red light. That set up a
final-round match against number-four
qualifier Tommy D'Aprile, who steered
his Mel Bush-owned '05 Corvette to
preliminary wins over Eric Dillard and
a redlighting Todd Martin before
advancing from the semis with a
holeshot win over Stanton.
After posting nearly identical
reaction times, D'Aprile ran 3.60 at
208.30 mph, but it was Snider's 3.56
at 209.95 that took the win home to
Atmore, Alabama.
"This was a collective effort," Snider
insisted later. "First of all I want
to thank God; He already knew who was
going to win this race; Tommy and I
were just here for the ride.
"But I have to thank Neal Wantye for
helping me out, Ken from Motorsports
Unlimited, Jimmy Crenshaw, Michael
Elsberry, Steve Holloway, all my crew,
Joey Martin; these guys just did what
they had to do and I just drove it,
man. I had the easy job."
EXTREME PRO STOCK
Just as he was at the previous PDRA
race a month earlier in Martin, Mich.,
Brian Gahm was quickest in Extreme Pro
Stock qualifying for the PDRA U.S.
Drags with a 4.06 pass at 177.44 mph
in his 2013 Mustang. John Montecalvo
placed second at 4.09, Dean Goforth
was third at 4.10, while his son and
points leader Cary Goforth finished up
the top half of the eight-car field
with a 4.11-second pass at 177.49 mph.
All but Dean Goforth advanced from
round one of racing, but it was Cary
that went the distance for the win,
beginning with an epic, three-minute
staging duel in round one with John
Pluchino, then taking out Gahm in the
semis to meet sixth-place qualifier
Lester Cooper in the final.
Cooper took a slim .008 lead with his
'09 Mustang off the start and made his
quickest run of the weekend at 4.18
and 172.30 mph, but Goforth's 2014
Camaro laid down a 4.10 at 176.67 to
earn his third PDRA win of the year.
"You know, I hate that Dad lost to him
in round one, but Lester keeps going
to these finals and he's going to win
one of them one of these days,"
Goforth pointed out. "We struggled a
bit with my car this weekend, but my
guys kept working at it and working at
it and I feel fortunate to be standing
here right now. This one wasn't easy,
but then, none of them are. This is a
tough class."
PRO BOOST
Through qualifying and eliminations
Wallace, NC's Kevin Rivenbark kept
going quicker each round in his
supercharged '67 Mustang until
securing his first PDRA Pro Boost win
with a 3.86-seconds pass at 191.40 mph
in the final against Florida's Joe
Baker. Rivenbark's teammate and crew
chief Todd Tutterow paced a Pro Boost
record 23 entries with a 3.84 at
191.51 in qualifying, followed by
Baker, NHRA regular Mike Janis and
Rivenbark at the head of the 16-car
race-day field.
In eliminations, Rivenbark exactly
matched his 3.92 qualifying pass to
beat Jim Bell's twin-turboed Camaro,
then improved to 3.90 in beating Tommy
D'Aprile's blown '62 Chevy Bel Air,
and improved again to run 3.89 in the
semis to defeat Tutterow and his
supercharged '69 Camaro.
Baker, meanwhile, drove his
supercharged '53 Studebaker past Tommy
Gray, Andy Beal and Janis in a very
tight semi final that saw Baker edge
ahead of Janis' blown 2013 Camaro by
just three-thousandths of a second at
the eighth-mile stripe.
It wasn't nearly that close in the
final, however, as Baker's ride shook
the tires for the first time all
weekend and coasted to a 5.70 lap at
just 83 mph.
"I didn't see Joe, so I didn't know
what happened to him at all,"
Rivenbark said. "But it feels good to
finally get out of the semis and win
one. Hopefully this is the start of
something big and we can get after it
in the points now, too."
PRO EXTREME MOTORCYCLE
After the fields were tentatively set
by two rounds of qualifying on Friday
(July 26) at Virginia Motorsports
Park, only past class champion Ashley
Owens in Pro Extreme Motorcycle was
able to force a change at the head of
the lists in Saturday's last-chance
qualifying session with a stellar
4.05-seconds pass at 174.37 mph in the
heat of the day on Saturday.
In one of the most dramatic races of
the event, Owens fell in the opening
round to teammate and points leader
Eric McKinney, however, after both
riders posted identical 4.090 runs,
with McKinney's .014 starting-line
advantage translating to the same
margin of victory 660 feet later.
Two-time class champion McKinney then
beat Jay Fisher in the semis to reach
another former champion in Billy Vose
for the final.
Vose, who qualified sixth for the
eight-bike field in his first PDRA
appearance, scored a first-round win
over Canada's Terry Schweigert, then
beat Ron Procopio with a 4.08 pass in
his own semi-final match to earn lane
choice over McKinney.
When the green light flashed, Vose
took a .018 lead off the start, then
led stripe to stripe, going 4.11 at
172.32 mph to beat McKinney's 4.17 at
146.50 package after his bike's engine
broke shortly before the finish line.
"We like to use a scuffed tire and our
last tire had some 60 or 70 runs on it
and it was starting to chunk on us, so
we were on a brand-new tire here,"
Vose explained later. "That's why we
were slow in qualifying (4.15/171.69),
but I felt like if we could get it
scuffed in time we'd be okay and
that's what happened."
TOP SPORTSMAN
Aaron Glaser, the most recent PDRA Top
Sportsman winner from Michigan last
month, continued his momentum with a
career-first three-second pass
(3.987/181.57) to earn the number-one
spot in Virginia, but it was
number-six qualifier Bruce Thrift
standing tall with the winner's
hardware when the racing was over.
While Glaser lost in the opening
round, Thrift successfully turned back
challenges from Tim Lawrence,
number-two starter Ronnie Davis, and
John Lassiter before beating close
friend Glenn Butcher for the win after
Butcher redlighted by nine thousandths
in the final.
TOP DRAGSTER
In Top Dragster Derrik Sholar started
from the 13th qualifying slot, then
drove his 2008 Race Tech car past Alan
O'Brien, a redlighting (-.001) Danny
Payne and Craig Sullivan to set up the
final against 14th-place qualifier
Travis Harvey.
Both drivers dialed in 4.19 to set up
a heads-up start, where the race was
ultimately decided as Sholar left with
an excellent .006 reaction leading to
a 4.201 pass, while Harvey ran on the
number with a 4.194, but his .022 at
the tree translated to a
nine-thousandths deficit at the finish
line.
PRO JR. DRAGSTER
With the win in Pro Jr. Dragster,
Preston Tanner of Renssalaer, Ind.,
finished one position better than his
result in the Michigan PDRA race last
month.
TOP JR. DRAGSTER
Willowbrook, Ill's. David
Roloff won a double-breakout Top Jr.
Dragster final.
The PDRA returns to action Aug. 14-16,
when it visits Osage Casino Tulsa
Raceway Park for the inaugural PDRA
Under the Lights, a special-event
nighttime race. Complimentary tickets
will be available at many retail
outlets near the track, or may be
printed for free from
https://pdra660.com/free-tickets/2014/tulsa |