THE ‘NORTHERN ASSASSIN’
STRIKES AGAIN
CHRIS RINI CAPTURES CAROLINA XTREME PRO MOD VICTORY AT WOOOSTOCK
BY JOSH HACHAT • PHOTOGRAPHS BY JASON DUNN
CHRIS RINI can call Darlington
Dragway his home track. It’s
also becoming quite clear that
Rini feels perfectly at home at
the facility.
Rini continued to roll in Darlington,
picking up his second win there already this
year — no small feat considering racing had been
on hold for two months — as part of the fourth annual
Wooostock, May 15-16. The Carolina Xtreme
Pro Mod Series competed during the event, and
it was again Rini, the reigning champ in the series,
who was left standing, going 3.657-seconds
at 203.80 mph to beat Jim Halsey in the final
round in his Buck Racing Engines-powered ATI
Performance Products Camaro.
“I love Darlington,” Rini says. “It’s not that far
from my house and the track conditions are always
killer. It’s a quarter-mile track, so it’s easy to get
stopped and we have a good time there. Obviously
we were crowd-less this time, but it’s a good racetrack.
It’s a good facility, the people there are real
friendly. I guess it’s turned into my home track.”
The New York native had settled in Hickory,
North Carolina, years ago, but just recently moved
his entire race operations there.
That came during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,
and it was a move that Rini welcomed for
a number of reasons. Most of all, it keeps his race
shop close to Darlington and a few other nearby
facilities, and Rini continues to thrive.
His most recent hot streak dates back to last
year when he ruled the Carolina Xtreme Pro Mod
Series and made the winning run in the thrilling
Pro Mod vs. RvW matchup during the Shakedown
event at Virginia Motorsports Park.
He won the season-opener for the Carolina
Xtreme Pro Mod Series in March before the
public health crisis hit, but Rini and his team
looked as good as ever last weekend following
the lengthy break.
“I knew going into this race that everyone has been cooped up for eight
weeks and a lot of people never got a season-opener,” Rini says. “We were
fortunate we got to do one race, but there were people testing leading up
to this race since Tuesday. I didn’t feel like we had an edge and I also felt
that everybody and anybody that wanted to race was going to be there.
We had NHRA guys there, we had PDRA Pro Boost and Pro Nitrous
guys there. There was a real big crowd of cars, which was good. It was
pretty decent parity.”
It was a loaded field at Wooostock and Rini was honest in saying he
didn’t feel great heading into eliminations. After sitting second in qualifying
after Friday, he didn’t make the run he wanted in the final qualifier,
dropping all the way to eighth heading into eliminations.
But Rini and his team ruled the day when it counted, starting with
a 3.748 at 200.62 in the first round. He followed by
taking out No. 1 qualifier John Strickland on a holeshot,
obliterating Strickland on the starting line to have his
3.761 at 200.18 hold up. Rini followed with a 3.720
at 201.79 in a semifinal win, setting up the marquee
matchup with Halsey.
Rini posted a killer .013 reaction time and led Halsey,
who went a stout 3.675 at 203.62, from start to finish.
“It felt great. All the guys were ready and they wanted
to come to this race,” Rini says. “Putting it in the middle
of Wooostock was cool. It was a good event. The crew
really worked well and we didn’t have any mistakes.
This whole deal, there’s 1,000 ways to lose and usually
one way to win. There’s just so many variables, and it
all just came together. I felt I drove real (well), the car
was great and I had a good car under me. We were
near to low of every session, so we made good runs.”
Rini has made the most of his recent opportunities,
praising a group that also includes Brandon Switzer
of Switzer Dynamics. Everything has worked efficiently and Rini has delivered
in the clutch, leading to a winning combination across the board.
“It’s been great. We work hard and the guys really put in a lot of time
behind-the-scenes,” Rini says. “Our motor program is really good, our
transmission program is really good, (and) our nitrous program with
Brandon Switzer and with MoTeC has been really good. We have a really
good package right now.”
More than anything, he was happy to return to racing and believes the
show at Wooostock can be a boon for the racing community.
“Hopefully we did a good job showing people that you can race,” Rini
says. “I think it was good and it was good for the race community. I’m
hoping it was good for other tracks, promoters and race series, and at this
point, the United States needs to be turned back on so we can co-exist
and be out there and do things.” DI
PROMOTER KEITH
BERRY HAS PUT HIS
DRIVING CAREER ON
THE BACK BURNER
WHILE PARTNERING
WITH CAROLINA N/T
PRODUCTIONS’ LANCE
STANFORD TO PUT
ON WOOOSTOCK AT
THE MILLER FAMILY’S
DARLINGTON DRAGWAY.
June 2020
DragIllustrated.com | Drag Illustrated | 97