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Texas Raceway: TOPMA August
Text by Celeste Smith ~ Image by Gena White
After sprinkling most of the morning, the clouds parted and the hot, humid sun came out just in time for qualifying. Ten Pro Mod teams showed up to do battle, TOPMA style. Here's how everything unfolded:
#1 Gaylen Smith - 4.022 at 188 mph
#2 Ken Thomas - 4.070 at 177 mph
#3 Michelle Wilson - 4.220 at 169 mph
#4 Steve Wiley - 4.249 at 179 mph
#5 David Baldwin - 4.333 at 163 mph
#6 Jackie Deaver - 4.336 at 165 mph
#7 Chuck Poindexter - 4.713 at 149 mph
#8 Gene Hector - 4.755 at 106 mph
#9 Doug Riesterer - 4.780 at 117 mph
#10 Perry Dunn Racing - NT (Left before tree activated and kicked rods out on that run)
First Round:
David Baldwin (W) 4.360 at 161 mph (.030 RT) **UPSET WIN**
Steve Wiley (RU) 7.398 at 59 mph (.050 RT)
Steve Wiley at the wheel of Jimmy Hector's '63 Corvette was the better qualified car but after a slight hole advantage and a very consistent car, David Baldwin gets the win.
Michelle Wilson (W) 4.215 at 169 mph (.039 RT)
Jackie Deaver (RU) 4.291 at 166 mph (.007 RT)
WOW, what a race. Jackie had the advantage off the line but Michelle had the horsepower planted on the track and she gets around Jackie for the win.
Ken Thomas (W) 4.094 at 178 mph (.053 RT)
Chuck Poindexter (RU) 4.729 at 148 mph (-.004 RT)
Chuck knew he needed to pull out all the stops and he pushed the tree a little too much giving the automatic win to Ken Thomas who was on a nice clean pass.
Gaylen Smith (W) 4.109 at 163 mph (.132 RT)
Gene Hector (RU) 12.843 at 35 mph (.114 RT)
After meeting up with the retaining wall in the back-up car a few weeks ago, Gene and the Small Block Mafia crew went to work transferring everything over into the new black camo vette and this car is still giving them trouble. Gene lost traction at the hit of the throttle and just coasted thru.
Semi-Finals:
Gaylen Smith (W) 3.996 at 190 mph (.098 RT)
David Baldwin (RU) 6.269 at 74 mph (.063 RT)
David got the holeshot advantage off the line, but it was all over with shortly past the 60 foot mark as the hard charging hemi in the Hell Fish made the first 3 second pass of the night.
Ken Thomas (W) 4.020 at 180 mph (.190 RT)
Michelle Wilson (RU) 4.888 at 112 mph (.033 RT)
Michelle had a huge holeshot advantage but had to abort the run and Ken makes his best pass of the night and takes the win which sets up an all LenMar Motorsports final round.
Finals:
Gaylen Smith (W) 3.948 at 191 mph (.082 RT)
Ken Thomas (RU) 4.298 at 133 mph (.075 RT)
Both cars left virtually even (slight advantage to Bad Hoss) but Gaylen's Hell Fish got to the stripe first. Ken Thomas was having trouble taming the "Bad Hoss" in the House of Hot Rods/LenMar Motorsports lane. Congratulations to Gaylen and team TBH on your victory and also to Ken Thomas and the LenMar/Thomas Motorsports team for your runner-up finish as well. All the crews serviced the cars and tucked them into the trailers for a little shut eye so we could do it all over again the next night.
For photos from the race go to Toyse Woody's site http://prostockcars.com/images/tompa_8_14/index.html
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Celeste
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