Though the Rocky Mountain Nationals were rained out over at Bandimere Speedway, that didn’t stop the IDRC gang from putting on a great show over at Maryland International Raceway.
Let’s get this story going with the BFGoodrich Street Tire class. The ’91 Talon of Shepherd dominated the class with a qualifying run of 9.162 @ 159.14. The next closest run in his class all weekend was an 11.467 @128.54 from Rich Glorioso, also during qualifying. Shepherd laid down a 9.758 @ 147.6 to take home the cheque $2,000.
Moving up to the far more competitive All-Motor class, we had 14 qualifiers, making for lots of racing and excitement. In the semi-finals, Ezerioha and Median faced off, with the ’88 CRX of Ezerioha coming out on top with a run of 10.574 @ 130.42. The other race was Prayoonto vs Wright. Prayoonto won this battle with a 10.568 @ 127.79 to the 11.387 @ 117.22 from Wright. This set up the final race. Ezerioha tripped the lights with a reaction time of 0.118, handing the otherwise decided race over to Prayoonto who ran a slower 10.671 @ 126.58 to Ezerioha’s 10.610 @ 132.45.
The Drag Sport Magazine Quick Class was also a dominating affair. Paul Efantis and his seemingly unbeatable ’97 Toyota Supra started things off with a qualifying 8.503 @ 170.54, setting Low ET for the class. He continued on, unchallenged through the rounds, finally meeting up with the ’93 Civic of Sav Leone in the final. The power and traction of the Supra went unchallenged, as Efantis posted an 8.699 @ 169.81 to the valiant effort of Leone who ran a 9.104 @ 161.02.
The Outlaw class showed a little more excitement at the top of the class, with winners circle veterans Vinny Ten and Brent Rau both running high seven-second runs. However, Rau stumbled in the semi-finals, running only a 9.038 @ 137.47 to the 8.35 @ 145.88 of Jose Escalara. This plotted him (Escalara) against Ten for the final. The ’72 Datsun was back off the pace though in the final, and Ten took the win handily with a 7.967 @ 172.43 to the slowed 10.339 @ 93.26 of Escalara. Yet another Supra takes home a big juicy $2,000 cheque.
The Pro classes continued to offer some very close racing and excitement. The Pro-Am All-Motor class had a span of merely 0.009 seconds between the top three cars. It was Rick Everly who bested Katie Williams in a race with close ETs, but a big gap at the line. Pro-AM FWD was won by Brian Ballard after Shad Sawyer backed off part way down the track. The Pro-Am RWD/AWD class was looking like it might be an all Matthew Miller affair as he posted the quickest qualifying ET. And luckily for him, it was, as he coasted to a 12.325 @ 98.43 win against the non-effort of Jim Pakzynski in the all-Supra final.
This wraps up another great race for the IDRC gang, and sets the stage for the East Coast finals at Maple Grove Raceway on September 27, 2003.
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