“I came around the corner down there and it was just billowing smoke everywhere, but it was just a $1.50 part. A little fitting on the back of the valve cover broke and four seconds of it on the race track gushing oil made it look like a bomb went off.” But looking back, it may have been a blessing in disguise, he said. “When you go through all that excitement and confusion before the semi-finals I think it kind of took all the pressure off.”

Hoover left first in the semis, but his 6.02 at 239.74 couldn’t hold back the 5.95 at 250.78 that sent Personett to the final against Baker, who pitched a rod through the block of his supercharged ’68 Camaro just as it also crossed the line in 6.02 seconds to defeat a redlighting Ray Commisso.

“For the final we rolled up there knowing that Joe (Baker) was broke and that was more disheartening than anything, but I finally got a chance to catch my breath while I was waiting there,” Personett recalled. “Between cleaning it up and dealing with everyone who was out there and just basic maintenance between rounds—which is just the hardest thing for our small team when we start going rounds—it was a lot to take in.”

Personett gets the job done at the race track with only the help of his father, Mike, friend John Ferguson (who unfortunately missed the Indy win due to a family emergency), and Harry Hruska, owner of Precision Turbo in Hebron, Indiana. His RJ Race Cars-built Camaro carries an Alan Johnson 520 c.i. TFX block that’s topped by Total Flow Products heads, while electronic fuel injection by Personett’s primary sponsor, Big Stuff 3, delivers the mixture and a pair of 91-mm Precision Turbo turbochargers provide the boost.

The potent package delivered an early-shutoff 6.00 at 221.42 mph for Personett in the Indy Pro Mod final.

“We wanted to race for the win, but I decided to run the thing to the thousand-foot, just for the TV and for the fans,” he said. “Then I had people later asking if I blew it up and I had to tell them, ‘Hell, no, I shut the thing off, gotta’ save the parts!’”

But now that he’s a U.S. Nationals champ, Personett will have to get used to people approaching him with congratulations and admiration—probably for the rest of his life.

“They’re coming up to me now and saying, ‘You just won the biggest race of them all,’ and I can’t help but think, at least a little, ‘Well, that’s what I do, that’s what’s supposed to happen. That’s what I’m out here for.’ But honestly, I have to say, it was pretty exciting.”