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Pro Extreme Qualifying and Eliminations

The Pro Extreme class at Dallas was probably one of the largest in ADRL history and without a doubt delivered more three-second, 200+ passes in the history of the class.

No fewer than 48 of the “Unlimited” Pro Extreme cars with supercharged or turbocharged powerplants showed up at the Texas Motorplex for the first race of the 2010 season looking to win not only the first race of next season but start gathering points for the ADRL’s 2010 Battle for the Belt Championship.

In all there were 40 sub-four-second laps recorded on Friday night and another 20 or so on Saturday. Two hundred-mph laps were cheap at this race with at least nine cars getting time slips with those numbers on them. For fans of the quickest and fastest doorslammers in drag racing, the World Finals delivered a veritable buffet of performance.

The Pro Extreme official qualifying saw 20 cars in the threes led by Quain Stott with a 3.762/204. The bump spot wasn’t a record number but was still stout at 3.912/201.25, and there were four more cars with three-second laps that didn’t qualify, including Josh Hernandez and Frankie Taylor.

Eliminations began on Saturday for the 16-car qualified field. We pick up the action in the second round when it became apparent that the famed Motorplex was turning into a one-lane track with a majority of the winners coming from the right lane.

Stott began his string of 3.75/205+ runs to the final pair using a 3.752/205.26 to beat Bubba Stanton. Wes Johnston wasted a 3.749/202 lap losing to Tutterow’s 3.80/200.08 holeshot win. Ken Thomas and Alex Hoosler, who had the only Lenco-drive car in the field, both advanced to the finals.

In the semis another 3.75 lap from Stott ended Battle for the Belts winner Tutterow’s dreams of a double. And Hossler got lane choice in the final using a 3.73 to beat Kelly Martin’s 3.775.

In the finals Stott made Hossler beat him running yet another 3.75/205 lap, but Hossler, who had earlier installed a fuel injection power adder plate built by blower guru Darren Mayer for the screw blower, used the power it delivered to record a 3.735/202.48 winning time. The engine exploded as Rossler went through the lights on fire.

“How’s that for a spectacular finish?” Hossler asked upon climbing from his car after stopping on the track where safety crews sprayed the engine with a fire extinguisher. “It banged the blower right when we crossed the line, but it lasted just long enough to get the job done.”

The final round was close as Hossler had just a .021 margin of victory over Stott.

In the first round of the Battle for the Belts for the Pro Extreme cars, Josh Hernandez driving the Jim Oddy-tuned ’57 Chevy sponsored by the National Guard looked as if he was going to deliver a dominant performance when in the first round he put a 3.716/206.86 thrashing on  Missouri “hitter” Cody Barklage’s GTO. No one else came close to that number during the Battle for the Belts.

In the second round of the “BFB,” Todd Tutterow advanced with a 3.804/200.50 win over pre-race favorite Jason Scruggs, who cut a superior .018 light but immediately shook, spun, and swapped lanes at least twice while miraculously avoiding both guard walls and coasting to a 6.201 loss.

The very next pair matched up the Lenco converter-equipped ‘Vette of Jason Hamstra against favorite Hernandez. Hamstra left first, putting two-hundredths in the bank on the leave, but Hernandez’s ’57 easily chased down and passed Hamstra with a 3.742/204.08 to Hamstra’s 3.784/204.46. As soon as Hamstra’s Camaro cleared the trap and he stepped off of the throttle, the car made a hard left turn out of the right lane and impacted the left side guard wall. Hamstra was shaken but unhurt and was kept overnight and released the next day. His Camaro was a write-off while Hernandez’s ’57 suffered just some superficial damage.

That set up a final round for the coveted Belt between Tutterow’s 2006 Mustang and Hernandez. That final round that saw Tutterow win the Belt was one of the strangest in ADRL history. At the flash of the green Tutterow left with a .133 light, not a great light by any standards but in the other lane Hernandez just sat and sat. He eventually let out the clutch in 1.830 seconds when Tutterow was at half-track. Hernandez then seemingly stepped off the throttle at half-track and coasted to 5.435/82.66 while Tutterow tripped the win lights with a 3.865/199.94.
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