TOPMA: Houston Motorsports Park

Text by Celeste Smith

Five determined Pro Mod teams rolled into HMP on Saturday, June 6th with the same goal: a win in the Texas Outlaw Pro Mod Association. After two strange rounds of qualifying, here's what happened.

#1 Frankie Taylor - 3.863 at 175 mph
#2 Jackie Deaver - 4.319 at 169 mph
#3 Gaylen Smith - 4.725 at 118 mph
#4 Heath Harvey - 6.360 at 73 mph
#5 Chris Smith - 7.190 at 62 mph

Jackie was the first Pro Mod to go and as soon as he unclutched it, he went A to B on a nice lap meanwhile Heath and Chris both had problems at the hit of the throttle first round qualifying. Chris was running the new "Smith Racing" '63 Corvette. (The car looked great guys) Chris was unable to make another qualifying attempt but was able to come back for 1st round. Gaylen and Frankie were up next and Frankie made a nice lap but the Hell Fish was moving around heading towards the wall and Gaylen wisely lifted.

First Round:

Chris Smith (W) 4.17
Jackie Deaver (RU) 4.26 at 167 mph

Jackie made a nice pass but Chris was able to overcome Jackie's holeshot advantage and take the win.

Gaylen Smith (W) 4.18 at 138 mph
Heath Harvey (RU) 4.36 at 178 mph

Holeshot advantage - Twisted Texan
Win Light.....Hell Fish

Frankie (W) 3.81 Bye Run

Semi-Finals:

Frankie Taylor (W)
Gaylen Smith (RU) Left before tree activated

As Gaylen was staging, he noticed something was wrong with the two-step switch and was unable to stage the car correctly which caused him to roll thru the lights giving the automatic win to Frankie. Frankie tried to make something of the pass but wisely lifted when the car started darting around in the middle of the race track.

Chris Smith (W) Bye

I'm not sure what Chris ran on his bye-run into the finals but his car was improving with every lap.

Finals:

Frankie Taylor (W) 3.96
Chris Smith (RU) 4.10

Congratulations to Frankie and Team Taylor on your victory at HMP and also to Chris Smith and the Smith Racing team for your runner-up finish with a new car combination.

This win tied Frankie for 1st place with Ken Thomas in the TOPMA points chase and Gaylen is only 3 points behind them. This is gonna be a great year for the fans as these drivers battle it out on the track for the bragging rights to be called 2009 TOPMA Champion. Will Ken be the only other driver other than Gaylen Smith with back to back wins or will somebody else have something to say about that?

We'll see what happens at Kennedale this Friday, 6/12/09 as the battle continues.