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their efforts were met with reward in the form of a 3.578 at 213.70 victory over Wulcan ’ s 3.569 at 212.36 .
“ First of all , we did have mechanical problems ,” Recchia said . “ We actually had to pull the engine a couple times . My son made all the right calls ; he read the track and gave it what he thought it could take . Sometimes we were a little weak , sometimes we were a little strong , but it all worked in the end .”
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the track on Q3 today . When you don ’ t go down two qualifiers in a row , it puts a lot of pressure on you . But I have a bunch of good guys behind me who worked hard . We were able to pull it off .”
Entering eliminations from the 10 th spot , Cox knocked down John Hall , Randy Weatherford and Danny Perry en route to his third final round and victory of the season . Franklin , whose daughter Amber won in Pro Junior Dragster , beat Chris Patrick , Ron Muenks and Jim Laurita to earn his spot in the final round .
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the heat of the day , but I felt like the numbers would come back when the cool conditions came back , and they did .” |
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PHOTOS : ROGER RICHARDS |
Recchia qualified fifth in his screw-blown Agrow Fresh ’ 69 Camaro in a field of 15 cars , a season high for the PDRA ’ s quickest and fastest category .
“ I just want to thank all of my family and friends who came out to support us this weekend . This is like a home race for us , about three and a half hours from home . Everybody came out to support us . To win in front of your friends and family is just beyond special – there ’ s no words to describe it ,” Recchia concluded .
Wulcan in his “ Black Bird ” ’ 69 Camaro fought his way into the final round from the seventh spot , posting round wins over John Stanley , José Gonzales and Frankie “ Mad Man ” Taylor .
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PRO NITROUS For the second race in a row , Jay Cox in his Clements Mechanical-backed “ Pumpkin ” ’ 69 Camaro defeated the “ Jungle Rat ” ’ 69 Camaro of defending world champion Tommy Franklin in the Pro Nitrous final round . Cox uncharacteristically struggled in qualifying , while Franklin led the field , but it was Cox who came out with the event win . The Buck-powered “ Pumpkin ” used a holeshot to defeat Franklin ’ s Musi-motored “ Jungle Rat ” in a 3.709-to-3.708 final-round decision .
“ It feels great ; I hope to make it three or four or five of these wins in a row ,” Cox laughed . “ I ’ m just in a rhythm right now . We came here and the barometer was down , which affects me because I really don ’ t have a good tune-up for that . But it ’ s coming around . We made that one good run in the heat , then the nighttime run I just got carried away with it . Then we didn ’ t go down
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EXTREME PRO STOCK Points leader Cary Goforth padded his lead over the Extreme Pro Stock field with his second consecutive event win . Even with the added challenge of putting together and fielding a second entry for his father , Dean Goforth , the Holdenville , Okla . -based driver managed to win the race from the No . 1 qualifying spot . He recorded a 4.081 at 176.77 in the final round against John Montecalvo , who lost traction and ran a 6.337 at 92.33 .
“ That ’ s the first time a No . 1 qualifier has won this year , and that was on my mind a lot ,” Goforth said . “ We ’ ve runnered-up as No . 1 , but we haven ’ t won as No . 1 and no one else has either .
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“ I think the thing that sticks out in my mind today is the points situation . Trevor ( Eman ) went out first round , we beat John Pluchino , then we got a round on Montecalvo in the final . It ’ s very beneficial in the points race to get stretched out there where you feel comfortable . I ’ m not saying you can slack off and lose first round , because you honestly can ’ t do that and win ( a championship ) with three races left . We need to stay away from first-round losses and stay on offense instead of defense . We can ’ t take our foot off the pedal .”
Goforth used progressively quicker performances to defeat John Konigshofer , defending world champion John Pluchino and class newcomer Matt Giangrande . Montecalvo , who was breaking in a brand-new Haas-built ’ 17 Camaro , displayed incredible consistency in his round wins over Rick Cowger , Dean Goforth and Jeff Dobbins .
PRO EXTREME MOTORCYCLE Travis Davis continued his winning streak that began in March when he won the second race of the season . He used his best pass of the weekend , a 4.029 at 174.64 , to beat Chuck Wilburn ’ s 4.116 at 170.62 and win his fourth consecutive final round aboard his Timblin-built Suzuki .
“ They were all tough ,” Davis said of his four event wins . “ You have to be changing and moving and doing something different at every race . We ’ ve won rounds where we were down on performance . We struggled some when we ran in
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Davis , who qualified second , eliminated Terry Schweigert and Eric McKinney before facing Wilburn in the final round . Wilburn raced out of the fourth spot and defeated the father-son duo of T . T . Jones and Chris Garner-Jones on his way to the final round .
TOP SPORTSMAN The two most recent Top Sportsman event winners on the 2017 PDRA Tour , Dewayne Silance and Randy Perkinson , met up in the Elite Top Sportsman final round at Indy . Silance , a hog farmer from Jacksonville , NC , used a . 020-second reaction time and dead-on 4.08 to take the win over Perkinson and his 3.972 on a 3.97 dial-in . Silance defeated Lester Johnson , Bruce Thrift and Andy Johnson on his way to the final , while Perkinson eliminated Glenn Butcher , Henry Underwood and Mick Snyder .
A total of 45 Top Sportsman cars attempted to qualify at the Mid-America Indy Showdown , leading PDRA officials to add a Quick 32 field in addition to the Elite 16 program . The Quick 32 event win went to Jeff Pittman over a red-lighting Gary Wojnowski Jr .
TOP DRAGSTER Midwest Top Dragster standout Kathy Fisher continued her recent hot streak with final-round win in the “ Dragoness ” ’ 15 American dragster . Her ProCharged entry was ready for a race , but she won the final at the starting line when opponent Matt Cooke left too soon . Both drivers coasted down the track shortly after launching off the
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