J
eff Dobbins was merely sticking to his word, while John
Pluchino joked he’s simply stubborn.
Combined, it turned into the longest burndown in Extreme
Pro Stock history on Saturday, May 4 at Virginia Motorsports
Park during the PDRA’s Mid-Atlantic Showdown presented by Modern
Racing.
In all, the starting-line duel lasted an almost-incomprehensible 4 min-
utes, 26 seconds before Dobbins finally staged. Pluchino followed, but
Dobbins won on a holeshot, as his 4.16 at 172.92 mph beat Pluchino’s 4.12
at 176.26.
Dobbins said he was simply keeping a promise that started at the PDRA
opener at GALOT, where they met in the semifinals. Dobbins staged first,
but Pluchino, who contends that Dobbins tried to rush him by going in
fast, was quicker off the starting line and eventually won the event. Dob-
bins vowed that wasn’t going to happen again.
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I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
“John is a great guy and great racer, but he always stages last. He did it
at GALOT and I told him if we run again, I’m not going in so he better be
ready,” Dobbins says. “Sure enough, the next race we had John. We were
ready. The car was topped off with fuel and we had the car as cool as we
could before the race. And then we sat.”
And sat, and sat, and sat. In fact, if it lasted much longer both cars were
going to run out of gas. That was beside the point for Pluchino, whose
“stubborn Italian” antics had fully taken over at that point. Gas or no gas,
he wasn’t going to stage. “I wouldn’t even look at the gauges,” Pluchino
says. “I didn’t want to know.”
How close was he to running out of fuel? “If it was a quarter-mile race,
the car would have shut off,” Pluchino says. “But when I get in that zone,
it doesn’t matter.”
That Pluchino was involved in the epic burndown should be no sur-
prise. He went a little over three minutes with Doug Kirk on a starting-
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