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Eighteen-year-old Jamie Hancock caught some breaks on his way to winning his first ADRL Pro Nitrous title. He and his ’04 ‘Vette were the last qualifier for the Championship -- only a trip to the semifinals at Dragstock IV in Rockingham finally paid for his ticket to the “Battle for the Belts.”
As the eighth qualifier he drew and beat points leader Johnny Pilcher in the first round and hitter Terry Housley in the second to get to the final round match-up with defending World Champ Keith Baker.
Points leader Pilcher red-lighted against Hancock in the first round and his crew rose to the occasion and made his best run of eliminations using a 4.029 to turn back Baker’s tire-shaking 5-second lap.
The Battle for the Belts in the Extreme 10.5 and Pro Extreme Motorcycle classes were a little anti-climatic as both winners basically ran singles for the title.
Steve Gorman, the fifth-place points finisher in 2007, won the Extreme 10.5 championship, making a single after Michelle Wilson’s nitrous-injected car refused to start. It was a bitter ending for Wilson who had already become the first female to win a round in AlphaTrade Battle for the Belts history and was attempting to become the series’ first distaff champion.
Pro Extreme Motorcycle competition came down to the top two riders of the season, No. 1 qualifier Coodee Thomas and No. 2 Bill Vose. Both men were driving Suzuki’s. In the final, Thomas left before the ‘tree was activated, although that didn’t keep Vose from posting a monster run of 4.278 at 173.38.
ALPHATRADE WORLD FINALS, SATURDAY
Saturday night was the AlphaTrade World Finals, the final race of the 2007 ADRL season, but the first race for drivers to accumulate points for next year’s Battle for the Belts.
Scruggs repeated his Friday night performance to win the Pro Extreme division with Dennis Radford (Pro Nitrous), Mike Hill (Extreme 10.5) and Ron Clark (Pro Extreme Motorcycle) also winning the Saturday event. However, Scruggs didn’t dominate the Saturday racing like he had the Friday night racing.s
